Refugees, National Security and Crime: a Perspective from Dunkirk

EMILY ROPER

The migrant situation in Europe and the Middle East is an undeniable human crisis that we cannot ignore. Regardless of political standpoint, this situation has to be talked about and acted upon in a way that acknowledges the lives that have been put on indefinite pause. Let us at least give the dignity of recognition and dialogue to the human beings who have been forced to leave their own countries due to persecution, war, or a stagnant economic situation.
 
Our world is now experiencing the highest levels of displacement on record. By July 2016, European Union reports were indicating that more than 1 million refugees had arrived in the EU throughout the previous two years, having fled from oppression, conflict, or extreme poverty in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. There are unofficial camps from Lesbos to Calais, with transient populations of people seeking a better life, and looking for safety. Their lives feature small tents, charitable donations, and no clear or official way to find security. Yet, how much do we really acknowledge this reality?
 
It has been a month since I returned from spending 5 weeks at La Linière refugee camp near Dunkirk, and it is evident that this reality is so rarely discussed. Before the camp suffered a significant fire and was subsequently closed by local authorities, those living there were rarely reported on. Sporadic and, frankly, sensationalist reporting would comment on cases of rape and abuse, or on the fighting and fire that took place on 10th April 2017, leading to the immediate closure of the camp. Such reports were important, and highlighted significant events and social situations that absolutely should be discussed. However, their isolation in a sea of journalistic silence creates destructive problems that must be addressed.
 
Silence on migrants in our mainstream media is only broken occasionally with articles that focus on violence, abuse, and manipulation. This Guardian article addressed rape and domestic violence in the former camp, and this piece from Deutsche Welle addressed the violence of mafia networks within the refugee population. Such narrow journalistic focus on the very worst and most destructive stories depicts a migrant population that is violent and immoral, incapable of achieving the standards of western civilisation. In demonising the refugee population, their situation is thus exacerbated, as empathy for refugees evaporates with every new article that shows abuse and manipulation committed by a small number of refugees.
 
I do not mean to demonise these articles themselves, because in essence they are correct and well-intended. Undeniably, it is right of these journalists to give a voice to the women who would rather wear incontinence pants than go to the toilets at night for fear of being assaulted, or the child who is being abused by a parent whose anger is aggravated by the powerlessness of their situation. It is not the fault of the journalists who concentrate on these stories that their articles have such a devastating effect on the perception of migrants. Rather, it is the failure of the journalistic community as a whole that devotes so little of its website space to this human crisis, so that the only stories to make it through are the ones of such violence.
 
Of course, being a refugee does put you in a vulnerable situation, and we should be doing all we can to get people out of these circumstances. It is a tragic reality that, if you take a cross-section of any society, it will contain a minority of people who do not respect others. Amongst myriad parents, doctors, models, builders, and marine biologists, our world contains people who would harm others. The refugee populations are no different: amongst the majority of people just looking for safety and to be able to start living again, there is a minority who gain from the suffering of others. Yet, can we turn our backs on thousands for the sake of a few? By only breaking our silence on the migrant problem for the most devastating of stories, we reduce our conception of the migrant population to one of demonic qualities, and fail to recognise the majority of refugees as vulnerable people, looking to live real lives again.
 
Furthermore, forcing refugees to remain in camps significantly raises the levels of human suffering that emerge in the aforementioned news articles. Whilst migrants remain deserted in unofficial camps across Europe and the Middle East, there is no way to monitor who is being manipulated or abused. When you’re not being recognised legally, there is no one to even notice when a minor is being trafficked and beaten, or a family is being manipulated in return for safe passage, and no legal structure with which to provide protection for those at risk. Whilst volunteers can do what they can to identify those who would be considered most vulnerable, the transient nature of the migrant community makes these circumstances difficult to assess, and even harder to act on. Abandoned to a constant state of non-existence, no protection can be offered and no steps can be taken for the prevention of harm. In doing so, this causes us to disassociate ourselves from the refugee community and to fail to recognise the majority of people just looking for security, instead leaving them trapped in a life unacknowledged and unprotected.
 
Moreover, such sporadic attention allows us to forget that this is an everyday reality. These people are not living lives that are spotted with tragic moments, but are living lives that are continuously vulnerable. There is no visible light at the end of the tunnel. When our information about the refugee crisis only appears on our newsfeeds in violent and shocking statistics, we lose focus from the stories of isolation and displacement that would show us the unending and hopeless fatigue of never knowing when you will have stability again. With the closure of La Linière camp towards the beginning of April, even the little stability there was - living in wooden boxes, knowing that volunteers would arrive with donations of food at the same time every day - became lost. Migrants went from having nothing to having so much less than nothing. Your food, your hygiene items, your phone credit - each day is a reminder that you cannot sustain yourself or support your family. There is the hope that, one day, you will find asylum and be able to start your life anew, but until that day comes, each day is another day stuck in limbo. Being suspended with no right to protection, and no right to sustain yourself, each day is another day without rights, and without official recognition as a human being.
 
At the end of the day, the starting point of any further action relies on the recognition of migrants as human beings who fully deserve the implementation of their fundamental human rights. Human beings have a right to clean water and a roof over their heads, but also the right to education, and the right to be self-sufficient. Living in a tent, surviving on food and clothing donations, and being denied the right to have any more purpose to each day than getting up, eating, smoking, and then sleeping again, is not a life. We have to recognise that migrants should have the right to really thrive, and not just survive. As individuals, we can volunteer our time for short term aid, or support those who feel capable of doing so.

Yet it is obvious that the true power to change the damaging and bleak reality of the refugee situation lies with European governments. No, we cannot take full responsibility for the creation of this refugee problem, but we can offer safety to those who have been abandoned, and restore the rights of those who have been denied them. Every day that we do not even discuss this issue is another day that these people are reduced to a tragic-but-frozen mural on the wall. This is not a question of blame, but a question of the imminent needs of vulnerable people. This will not alter unless we keep the dialogue open, and acknowledge the daily reality of having been forced from your country of origin, and then had every other door slammed in your face. None of those now affected had a choice in the genesis of the migrant problem, but we do have a choice in how we respond to it. Regardless of political perspective, there is something fundamentally inhuman to not acknowledge these people. This is not a statistical problem to be solved, or a cloud of locusts to be wafted away; these are human beings to be recognised.

The 'Organized Hypocrisy' of Western Refugee Policy

DUNYA HABASH

Barely a week after coming to office, US President Trump signed an executive order suspending the US refugee program for 120 days, specifically barring Syrian refugees from entering the country until further notice. Confusion erupted across US airports while shockwaves of protest gathered full force.

Although Trump’s executive order seemed extreme considering its direct repudiation of the international community’s commitment to refugee protection, the policy actually resembled asylum policies utilized by other western, refugee-receiving states; the only difference is the rhetoric. For example, Hungary recently passed a new set of anti-migration laws to prevent non-Europeans who do not intend to apply for asylum in the country from passing through its territory. In the wake of Europe’s recent migration crisis, only Germany offered mass protection thanks to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open door policy. However, even Merkel has recently admitted that her policy might not have been the best decision for Germany: “If I knew what change in refugee policy the people in Germany want, I would be prepared to consider it.”

In this case, is Trump really radical? Not really. His language is rudimentary and direct but not radical. The reality is that rich western states have been restricting access to their territories ever since the end of the Cold War, when refugees and asylum seekers no longer represented weapons against communism. Now that refugees no longer have value—their labor is no longer needed and they do not serve a political agenda—states are doing what they can to turn them away while also proclaiming their commitment to refugee protection in the international community. Matthew Gibney, a leading political theorist in refugee studies, calls this organized hypocrisy: “Northern states claim to support the principle of asylum, pointing to their status as signatories of the 1951 Refugee Convention, and their well-developed semi-judicial bodies that determine asylum claims, as well. However, they construct visa and control regimes that prevent asylum seekers from arriving lawfully at their borders.” These practices create negative attitudes towards refugees, attitudes that many individuals and human rights groups are working hard to subdue. 

Alas, I am tired of begging people to see refugees as human beings. As one of the many individuals working to reverse discriminatory attitudes against refugees, I confess that sometimes I feel like I am hitting my head against a wall as states and leaders push for more rigid non-arrival measures. My documentary about Zaatari Syrian Refugee Camp in Jordan, talks, and discussion groups seem to have little influence against the tide of discrimination and organized hypocrisy. And, I am not the only one doing this work; several human rights groups and sincere individuals across sectors are also begging people to recognize refugees as human beings with rights. So, why is nothing changing? Why are we stuck with hate and mass hysteria against refugees? Why are our leaders reinforcing this hate and getting away with it? 

Looking at possible solutions for today’s refugee crisis might offer some answers. Leading scholars and organizations in the humanitarian sector have recently put forward new and creative solutions for ‘fixing’ the international refugee system. For example, a new group named Europe in Africa (EIA) advocates for the founding of a new city-state on an artificial island built on the shallow Tunisian Plateau right between the Exclusive Economic Zone of Tunisia and Italy. The aim of EIA is “to provide a secure place for people who have to flee their country and want to reach Europe.” The group’s website provides a colorful map that lays out the infrastructure of the island, including hospitals, schools, churches, mosques, a soccer stadium, and even an airport. Reading this colorful map along with the organization’s objectives makes you question the seriousness of the proposal. My immediate response was “this cannot be for real.” 

At the same time, leading scholars in the field of refugee studies have also offered interesting new solutions. In their attempt to reconcile the disconnect between the international commitment to refugees and what actually happens on the ground, scholars Alexander Betts and Paul Collier recently release a book titled ‘Refuge’ in which they argue for a new solution to refugee protection based on comparative advantage, an old school principle in international relations theory. However, many have criticized this solution as exacerbating the very problem it is trying to fix.

Why is it so hard to fix this problem? Why do all our solutions seem farcical and incomplete? The simple answer is that the system is flawed. An international regime based on nationalism inherently creates refugees. Emma Haddad, a political theorist, argues that refugees are not only an inevitable consequence of the international state system, but also a constitutive part of the structure. Refugees reinforce the insider/outsider relationship, which is essential for the nation-state concept. Refugees lie betwixt and between nation-states.  Ultimately, Haddad argues, the ideal of the state-territory-citizen nexus on which international society is based will breakdown, and people will fall outside the state system, requiring that they receive a pathway back into that state system through asylum. These people represent “deviations from the normal model of international society.” Hence, they become anomalies, aliens left at the mercy of various communities willing to integrate them. 

Of course, there are other factors that create or have created refugees in the past such as decolonization, failed states, structural poverty, and conflict. However, the source of the problem—especially of the discriminatory attitudes towards refugees—is the rooting of peoples in physical territory. Anthropologist Liisa Malkki questions the assumptions scholars and politicians make about the rooting of cultures and the territorialization of national identity. In other words, why are we obsessed with rooting cultures in soils and, therefore, peoples in places? Internalizing this idea makes it easy to reject people seeking asylum in our countries because they do not ‘naturally’ belong here. Hannah Arendt eloquently described this new political awareness in 1951: 

Suddenly, there was no place on earth where migrants could go without the severest restrictions, no country where they would be assimilated…This, moreover, had next to nothing to do with any material problem of overpopulation; it was a problem not of space but of political organization.

The refugee problem, therefore, is a product of the international state system, and the only way to fix the problem is to fix the system. 

It is not enough to beg people to see refugees for their humanity. Many groups and individuals are doing just that. We cannot change attitudes without changing the structural implications for their creation in the first place. The system is inherently flawed, frozen in time and space. Our current world leaders are not only reinforcing the structure but expanding it with new laws and restrictions. Groups like EIA do the same but with different intentions. We need a new world order if we really want to ‘fix’ the refugee crisis—a world order not rooted in sovereign nations but in common humanity. 

The Computer and the Telegraph: Influence Channels Between Technology and International Relations

JEFFREY DING

J.C.R. Licklider, a pioneer of computer science, once said the computer is also the direct descendant of the telegraph as it enables one… “to transmit information without transporting material.” Separated by centuries of innovation, the computer and telegraph were revolutionary technologies that undeniably had significant effects in the domain of international relations. To better understand those effects, it is important to specify influence channels between technological developments and the conduct of international relations. This post starts with the computer to outline three general spectrums in which technological developments affect military strategy and warfare. Then, it specifically examines how the prospect of cyberattacks disrupts traditional threat assessments, based on the offense-defense paradigm. In the latter half, it highlights the development of the telegraph and its effects on international institutions and globalization. 

Technological change is intimately linked to military strategy. From the Lee Metford rifle, which enabled the British army to fell the Sudanese Dervishes in 1898, to the U.S. nuclear weapons monopoly in World War II, technological change has played an important, sometimes decisive, role in many conflicts. To more coherently conceptualize technology’s impact on warfare, this post sketches out three broad spectrums of influence: quantitative and qualitative improvements, independent and derivative effects, power diffusion and power concentration. Quantitative changes, operationalized as marginal increases in indicators such as force mobility or payload, are more likely to affect the tactical level of warfighting. For instance, one can see how computers enabled efficiency improvements in war simulations by tracing war gaming from sand tables drawn by Roman war generals to strategy board games to mathematical algorithms resembling calculators to digital programs.

On the other hand, qualitative improvements, which fundamentally affect how war is fought, are more likely to influence strategic decisions in military affairs. For instance, computers are essential for the operation of precision weapons, which Cohen argues ushered in the end of the mass army age. The quantitative-tactical/qualitative-strategic relationship is a tendency rather than a strict function. For instance, a quantitative change in reducing the “launch-to-target” timeframe for a nuclear missile launch may the tip the balance of whether a state could credibly threaten a retaliatory second strike, thereby shaping the other state’s strategic decision regarding a nuclear first strike.

A clear-eyed assessment of how technological change affects military strategy also requires an understanding of the spectrum between technology’s independent and derivative effects. Three main theories explain the emergence of military technology: the “corridor-and-doors” theory (military planners just need to walk down the corridor, unlock doors, and pick up chests of tech), the “form follows function” theory (military technology evolves to meet specific military needs), and the “form follows failure” theory (military technology is produced as a response to some failure in existing technology). Technological changes explained better by the second and third theory are positioned on the “derivative” end of the spectrum, and they put more weight on the surrounding material contexts rather than the technological innovation itself.

As for the “corridor-and-doors” theory, the independent effect of technological change is more readily identifiable. One possible test to differentiate between independent and derivative emergence is to consider whether the technology came from the civilian sector or the military realm. Innovation from within the military will be based on existing strategic considerations, whereas innovations from the civilian sector are not constrained by the status quo military context. For example, both the computer and telegraph were civilian technologies, originally designed to reduce human error in solving complex mathematical problems and facilitate long-distance communication, respectively. When applied to the military sphere, their contributions fundamentally altered the existing assumptions of the possible scale of warfare, as evidenced by the telegraph’s influence on the rise of the mass army as the dominant unit of war. In contrast, Germany’s use of motorized armor during World War II could be viewed merely as an epiphenomenon of their blitzkrieg doctrine to avoid a prolonged war and their military needs to overcome French machine guns, trenches, and barbed wire. Once again, the relationship between this civilian-military test and the independent-derivative spectrum is fuzzy not crisp. The development of nuclear weapons by the U.S. military is a notable exception; it has produced a rich body of literature focusing on nuclear weapons themselves as an independent variable.

But far too often, research into the effects of technological change in international domains focuses solely on military applications. There are two ways in which technological change influenced the development of international institutions. First, revolutionary communication technologies like the telegraph create coordination problems, which serve as demand pressure for international institutional development. The telegraph certainly revolutionized interactions between peoples, dropping communication times between Britain and India from six months in the 1830s to the same day in the 1870s. However, electronic telegraphy also presented significant coordination problems, such as one described by Ruggie concerning what happened to messages when they reached a border. Eventually, the European communications complex evolved from a series of bilateral treaties into several multilateral arrangements and, finally, into the International Telegraph Union (ITU). The ITU was the first standing intergovernmental organization, representing the rise of permanent institutions of global governance. This trend holds for other technologies as well; Murphy notes that a new generation of international organizations emerged as a regulatory response to revolutionary communication technologies, citing the ITU, the Radiotelegraph Union in 1906, and the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization in 1964. But the ITU set the precedent for the shape of multilateral arrangements to come: it codified rules of the road regarding the network of telegraph lines connecting Europe (and later the world), it established a permanent secretariat to administer those rules, and it convened periodic conferences to review the rules.
 
The second pathway of technological influence on international institutions and order is more intangible. While there were concrete effects of communication by telegraph – e.g. diplomats could send and receive messages without long delays– the intangible effects of virtually instantaneous communication may be more significant. Buzan and Lawson argue that the telegraph created a qualitatively different interaction capacity, linked peoples in a more intensely connected global economy, and generated a “19th century discourse” that shrank the world and allowed humanity to view themselves as one global body. Snapchat and Tinder have had a similar impact on modern love, changing the choice capacity of our romantic entanglements and resulting in interactions defined by transience, as noted by the influential thinker Aziz Ansari.

Indeed, technological innovations have significant effects on the military strategy and the development of international institutions. In the military domain, the type of influence, the independence of influence, and the power distributional effects of influence are important dimensions to examine, as demonstrated by military applications of the computer. The revolutionary impact of the telegraph is reflected in two channels – coordination problems as a push factor for international institutional emergence and change in how people conceive of the world and international order – through which technological innovations have altered international relations.  

Passage from Africa: a continent stifled by foreign ‘benefactors’

JOEL SILVERSTEIN

Between 1980 and 2009 the African continent, the world’s second most populous land mass, lost approximately US$1.4 billion (adjusted for inflation) owed in taxation that foreign governments and multinational corporations had illegally evaded. Today these illegal transfers of money out of the continent amount to three times as much as they valued at the start of the century — growing to more than US$50 billion a year.

The US$1.4 billion figure, which excludes money lost to organised crime, and thus underestimates the extent of the illicit outflows, roughly equates to Africa’s GDP today. The loss of this much-needed capital for some of the world’s poorest and most unstable economies has stymied national investments into development projects and the provision of basic services. The result has been a vicious cycle of underdevelopment that has had profound social, political and economic impact upon people across the continent.

Such is the extent of the capital flight, its forms multifarious; smuggling, money laundering, trade mispricing, and profit-shifting mechanisms that conceal taxable revenues, that despite the perception that Africa has received vast quantities of foreign aid and private-sector investment, and that little has been received in return, Africa has in fact been a net creditor for decades, with the illicit outflows of capital from the continent — arranged by governments and multinational corporations — valuing more than the total amount of foreign aid reaching Africa. Moreover, the Global Financial Integrity (GFI) think-tank has estimated that whilst perhaps only 3% of illicit outflows stem from bribery and embezzlement — activities which feature strongly in the public imagination — this is dwarfed by the estimated 60-65% of capital flight caused by multinationals seeking to avoid taxation.

Although it is broadly clear what needs to be done: there must be greater effort to eradicate corruption, increased transparency in the extractive resource sector, and a clampdown on financial institutions that participate in fraudulent transfers of capital, a recent report by the African Union and the UN’s Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) accused both African and non-African governments, and private-sector corporations, including oil, mining, banking, legal and accounting firms, of continuing to participate in money laundering schemes and corporate tax avoidance. 

Indeed, during a UN financing for development summit in Addis Ababa in 2015, the US, UK and Japan blocked efforts to upgrade the current UN tax body to an intergovernmental one — claiming that such a move would interfere with the work that the OECD (an economic group of high-income economies) already conducts on tax. However, for Jayant Sinha (India’s Finance Minister), “the lack of an ambitious decision on upgrading the UN Committee of Experts on international cooperation on tax matters into an intergovernmental body … is a historic missed opportunity,” since it would have given less developed nations greater influence over policy decisions on global tax arrangements made at the UN. Ultimately, there has been little appetite on the part of rich nations to intervene to the perceived detriment of their own corporations — who hold considerable domestic political influence.

Ironically, despite the West’s opposition, regulations that would improve anti-money laundering institutions would help prevent funding reaching terrorist groups like Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram, while a global tax body would remove the confusion and inconsistency from international trading, halt the race to the bottom when it comes to tax loopholes and incentives, and put an end to the phenomenon of individuals being taxed in two jurisdictions.  

With countries from across the continent, whether it be in West Africa where it is believed that Nigeria has lost over US$220 billion since 1970, or in an East African nation like Ethiopia that is losing as much as 11% of its production to illicit financial flows each year, such a pernicious economic problem — man-made by the world’s most powerful nations — is clearly overdue rectification. It has long been time for members of the OECD to take meaningful action on the international stage in order to level the economic playing field for all nations — ending an unjust, neocolonialist power dynamic which has improved the lot of rich nations at the direct expense of those that are less developed.

What is Britain For?

RUARI CLARK

Renewed calls for Scottish independence, the looming possibility of the severance of Ulster from the United Kingdom, and the departure of Britain from the EU again bring to the forefront questions of national identity and the purpose of the British state. Those who desired this departure, but who wish to maintain the Union of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland have some serious questions to answer. I was one of these people. I still am one of those people. But only a fool would deny that Brexit has potentially serious consequences on the Union. In light of this it is once again necessary to state what we see Britain as being for. That it is actively for something used to be accepted without question. But the last seventy years have changed that, possibly forever; the loss of Empire, Britain’s entry into the EEC and then the EU have both damaged the British state.

Following the loss of Empire, Britain was famously ‘yet to find a role’. Its politicians mistakenly saw its role as part of a European state, and so undermined the British state’s own claim to loyalty from all its subjects. That, combined with its defeat to Irish nationalists following the Good Friday Agreement, and the unnecessary and damaging creation of a Scottish ‘Parliament’, has created a situation in which the attempt to restate the sovereignty of the British state endangers the unity of our country. But Brexit is not a cause of this division, Scotland and Northern Ireland were being torn away from the rest of Britain long before June 2016. People in Scotland and Northern Ireland (and indeed in England and Wales) rightly question what the purpose of Britain is in the modern world. For seventy years their leaders have doubted its purpose, have denied its claims to loyalty, damaged its confidence in itself, attacked its history and its institutions. Is it any wonder that people argue for its dissolution?

The threat posed to the Union is a direct result of Britain’s self-abasement in European and world affairs. In 1902 Lord Curzon made a famous speech in Birmingham where he stated his belief in the necessity of an international role for Britain. For what would be the fate of the people of Britain if they retreated from the world stage? They would be reduced to a people ‘with no aspiration but a narrow and selfish materialism’, without the Empire, Britain would ‘become a sort of glorified Belgium’. Even earlier, in 1871, R.D. Nash warned in ‘The Fox’s Prophecy’ that:

Trade shall be held the only good,

And gain the sole device;

The statesmans’ maxim shall be peace,

And peace at any price.

Her army and her navy

Britain shall cast aside;

Soldiers and ships are costly things,

Defence an empty pride.

Such predictions have, in many respects, come to pass. Britain has, for many decades, denied its own history and, in doing so, has led to its very existence being placed under threat. When a country ceases to have pride in itself, it is little wonder that people should wonder why bother defending it.

The source of the current instability of the British state is, then, a direct consequence of the failure of British pride in itself as an international power and its inability to exist as ‘merely’ the union of four independent nations. The stresses and strains, the complexities, the inconsistencies, are too great to be ignored without a sense of driving purpose. Such drive and purpose existed when Britain was an expanding power, or when it fought in wars which threatened its shores. But, now, the memories of such power and such wars are – regrettably – distant enough that the bonds they created can be ignored by significant chunks of the population.

Such bonds have been further weakened by policies pursued by politicians, in their infinite wisdom. The divisions between England and Scotland are exacerbated by the fact that so few Scottish students study at English universities. The sense that we are one people is lessened by an ignorance of our own history. I am a British person – born in Scotland, educated in England, with an English father, a Scottish mother, and Irish ancestors. So it perhaps no wonder that I am in favour of the Union. But what are the bonds uniting us today, as opposed to the memories of previous bonds? What is being done today, to re-forge the unity that undoubtedly existed in previous times? Can anything be done? It is hard not to be too pessimistic when one wonders at the failures of the British state to defend itself, to support itself, and to make itself necessary to all the people of these islands.

We are left asking what is Britain actually for? If we provide economic answers then we are doomed to failure. No country can sustain itself by simply saying that it makes one richer. As Curzon knew, ‘narrow and selfish materialism’ cannot be enough to stir hearts in the way that is necessary to create a nation that is confident in itself. If we provide merely historical answers then we are also doomed to failure. Whilst we should not be shy of stressing our historical bonds and our historical achievements, such facts of history cannot be used indefinitely.

Answers might, however, be found when we look at post-Brexit Britain. Paradoxically, the opportunities afforded by an independent, sovereign Britain may allow us to re-create the dynamism that characterised the Union in the past. Our role in international affairs may yet enable us to rescue our sense of ourselves. The next few years are fraught with danger. There is a possibility that Scotland will vote for independence before we have even been able to begin reasserting ourselves. That is a risk that has to be taken. Continued membership of the EU made the dissolution of Britain inevitable. But we do now have an opportunity to change the course of history and reverse the inevitable.

Nash’s poem ‘The Fox’s Prophecy’ painted a bleak picture. In some respects this is reassuring, since Britain was able to last as a coherent nation for a hundred years after it was written, and able to weather two of the greatest and most disastrous wars in human history. Nash, while pessimistic, does give us hope:

Taught wisdom by disaster,

England shall learn to know

That trade is not the only gain

Heaven gives to man below.

The greed for gold departed,

The golden calf cast down

Old England’s sons again shall raise

The Altar and the Crown.

Britain is for something. It has been for something in the past and can be so again. The rediscovery of that purpose can be found in the wider world. To limit ourselves is to invite disaster and disunion. We must look to the role Britain can play in the world in order to demonstrate to ourselves the desirability of this union of nations. To do otherwise is to ensure that the Fox’s prophecy will have an unhappy ending.