Britain has come to the crossroads

Perhaps the most original book published recently on the development of the British state and our place in the world is called Maritime Supremacy and the Opening of the Western Mind, by a historian named Peter Padfield. It only went up to 1788 and I am glad to say its sequel* is coming out in a couple of weeks.

The sequel's arrival is timely, because we unexpectedly find ourselves at a fork in the road. The route we go down will have a huge influence on the design of the British state, its institutions, our legal system, our taxation system and the prospects for future generations.

For years, smarty-pants have said that Britain has lost an empire and is in search of a role. But with the European constitution on the one hand, and the pull of our alliance with America on the other, that quest could be on the verge of conclusion.

The uncertain post-September 11 world has many parallels with the 18th and 19th centuries, when our forebears turned up in the most bizarre places, all round the world. Padfield is a handy guide to that time. Perhaps a clever Downing Street policy wonk will tuck his books into Tony Blair's suitcase when he goes to Washington this week.

Padfield looks at the Navy and how it affected governing principles. His thesis is that Britain spread its influence and saw off nations such as France and Spain because it was a naval power with superior financial and constitutional arrangements.

As an island, Britain depended on trade and its merchants required a navy to protect them. The Navy was expensive, so a central bank - the Bank of England - was needed to raise the debt to pay for it. A decent, uncorrupt taxation system, based on the consent of Parliament rather than the capricious whim of a monarch, was also required.

So Britain was not only the most powerful nation, but also the most democratic. Our institutions evolved with our place in the world. It is a reassuring, if rather Whiggish, narrative, also in vogue among other historians, such as Niall Ferguson.

Now we face similar choices to those financiers, manufacturers, adventurers and explorers who founded the Bank of England in 1694, or who agitated for the vote with the Great Reform Act in 1832 .

If Mr Blair signs the European constitution - which he seems determined to do - it will, as far as I can see, be the end of Britain as a serious independent power. It will also lead to the gradual redesigning of our institutional framework.

The euro beckons. Taxation and regulation would increase as we tilted towards the European social democratic model. Judging by the woes of Germany and France, economic growth would be lower and unemployment higher.

Indeed, the euro-isation process has already started as the Government has surrendered to an armada of EU initiatives. Last week, it approved rules giving workers the right to question any decision their company makes that might affect them.

A characteristic of European social democratic states is not just high welfare payments, but also low defence spending. EU countries spend between one and two per cent of GDP on defence.

Since the end of the Cold War, British defence spending has been halved from five per cent to 2.5 per cent of GDP, whereas America's is nearer four per cent. The deployment to Iraq showed our military spirit is still willing to operate as a global power, but no longer is our flesh strong. British forces were shamefully badly equipped and under-resourced.

The Iraq deployment might be the last proper expedition of British forces on a large scale. The European constitution gives the EU a foreign minister and greater say in our foreign policy. Most of our aid budget is already under EU control. Given Brussels's capacity for mission-creep, the betting has to be that this trend will continue.

But the Iraq foray also demonstrated the alternative path, away from the centralised, bureaucratic EU envisaged by the European constitution and towards a more international destination. Britain remains the world's fourth or fifth largest economy, with global interests.

We have the largest mobile phone group (Vodafone), largest bank (HSBC), largest advertising group (WPP) and the second largest oil company (BP). We have countless other commercial, diplomatic, cultural and historical ties round the world.

In places such as Zimbabwe, our honour is also engaged. Our trade with the rest of the world, especially in services, is growing faster than our trade with Europe. At the heart of this web is the City, the only rival financial centre to New York.

For 300 years, the principal British interests have been the maintenance of free trade and the rule of law. They remain our interests. They are best upheld by the Anglo-American alliance (although we must be careful not to be subsumed by it). The decrepit forces of the EU, by contrast, just aren't up to the job.

So safeguarding our interests in the future could necessitate another redesign of the British state. As Iain Duncan Smith touched on in his Prague Declaration last week, this would mean shunning the European constitution and instead arguing for a free trade association of sovereign nations, including Russia, Turkey and the Balkans.

The shape of government might also change, pushed by higher defence spending. If we were to make room for this demand on the Exchequer without hugely raising taxation, our health and education systems would have to be reformed along more free market lines - no bad thing in itself.

* Maritime Power and the Struggle for Freedom by Peter Padfield (John Murray) will be published on August 7.

What a relief to read a Briton who understands Britain's role in the Civilized and English-Speaking world, its last hope of surviving as a nation -- and the national murder/suicide toward which its generations of execrable Communist-International/Commintern/Comminform-manipulated Conservabour politicians and insidiously-totalitarian bureaucrats have directed it.

<< Perhaps a clever Downing Street policy wonk will tuck [Peter Padfield's] books into Tony Blair's suitcase when he goes to Washington this week. >>

Please God!

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The concept of the "central bank" of which he speaks was the world's most collossal fraud ever perpetrated on mankind and it's fraudulent paper currency, which continues to this day, is the enabler of the welfare state. Let's hope he forgets that part.

<< The concept of the "central bank" of which he speaks was the world's most collossal fraud ever perpetrated on mankind .... >>

A given.

Along with "fractional reserve 'banking,'" "deficit 'spending'" and "social 'security.'"

[AKA fraudulent false pretenses, counterfeiting and the mother of all Ponzi schemes]

Keynsian

on the lighter side...now that the Melbourne Cup is past a story is going the rounds about a Trainer whose horse has run last 3 times recently so he called his jockey to task about this & said to him that next race he had better be up with thepack as they come down the home straight..the Jockey concentrated for a few seconds & said.." what,& leave the horse behind ! " it has been said that Aussy pollies are undetered by public opinion...we can only hope that it is a big one & drops from, a great height ...on ya Brian.trapper john

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