Back in the day when this blog generated new material like a whirling dervish on heat, I contributed to the BritBlog Roundup – a self-appointed group of bloggers who took it upon themselves to assemble more or less thematic round-ups from the blogosphere as a contribution to the common weal.

That idea just sighed and died. People had better things to do.

One of my contributions in 2009(!) was BBRU 226 – a look at how the UK blogosphere tackled EU issues, or not.

I recall rummaging around the Internet trying to find British blogs that showed some sustained interest in EU issues. Broadly speaking, I found a handful of blogs that looked at EU issues from an unambiguously pro-EU point of view. Two of them are still going strong: Nosemonkey’s Eutopia and Jon Worth Euroblog. Jon’s blog is so pro-EU that it carries this noteworthy piece about why non-UK progressives (sic) should support Brexit:

So that is the progressive and federalist case for Brexit. The EU would have a better chance at advancing progressive policies, and democratising itself, without the UK in it. For even if the UK were to vote to remain in the EU, such a vote is not going to set UK-EU relations on an even keel. Hence the rest of the EU should think like Rocard and De Grauwe and advocate Brexit, for the EU’s own sake.

These small Internet islands of British pro-EU opinion were surrounded by a vasty turbulent ocean of more or less explicit Eurosceptic blogs, ranging from the sprawling output of EU Referendum through all kinds of UKIP-style blogs then English nationalist blogs into all sorts of darker places. The passion and intensity were overwhelmingly on that side of the issue.

Has that changed since 2009? Not as far as I can see.

Pro-EU blogs (when you find them) are mostly the work of people with professional backgrounds in the liberal cum academic establishment or part of an academic space. See eg Jon Danzig, formerly of the BBC. And the LSE’s EUROPP website.

But otherwise all the energy and commitment are still with the Brexit tendency, all the more so as the forthcoming referendum is a very rare chance for us mere members of public to have a direct say on something so far-reaching.

Back in 2009 this is how I concluded that BBRU:

Maybe the undertow of Euroscepticism in the UK lies here – a feeling among the public that while they cheerfully accepted a friendly relationship with Europe, they just do not consent to the closeness of the union with other EU populations and EU institutions which they are now getting.

But how have we Brits ended up like this? Were we drunk, unconscious, asleep, threatened or coerced when our politicians signed up to the idea of “ever closer union among the peoples of Europe”? Or did we notice the persistent advances of EU processes working their way into our intimate policy places, but pretend to like them and/or ignore them until it was too late to say Stop?

Or did we say Yes, albeit reluctantly and with a heavy heart, but indeed meaning Yes?

If we did say Yes earlier on, when if ever is it OK to just say No More to ‘ever closer union’ – and to insist on having that No More respected and upheld?

* * * * *

These things are not just about different mountains of laws and directives. Beneath all that lie very deep philosophical currents.

Let’s end with UKIP candidate Tim Worstall on the battle between our Common Law tradition and Europe’s Roman Law tradition as it affects the City:

Precisely because you can construct a contract, create a derivative, make a deal, in pretty much any manner you choose, the innovation will be in that Common Law area. Not in a Roman Law jurisdiction where there is a great deal more approval-getting that is necessary. Extending detailed EU control over these markets will of course wipe out that comparative advantage…

This takes us way back to the eighteenth century and the divergence between different streams of Enlightenment thought in England, Scotland, the nascent USA and France.

Ideas of political responsibility, the definition of the ‘state’, separation of powers, trial by jury, and so on – we in the UK and the wider Anglosphere do have differing traditions from those of Continental Europe …

A lot of European governments either do not care for our traditions, or smirk as they are whittled away by EU processes.

* * * * *

There are only three possibilities:

  • Extremes expand to squeeze the middle
  • The middle expands to squeeze the extremes
  • Middle and extremes stay in an uneasy but more or less stable balance

In this case the ‘Middle’ for a long time has been a cosy consensus across the political and media establishments that ‘the EU is good for you’.

More and more UK (and especially English) voters are mobilising via the Web and saying loudly, “Oh no it’s not!” Public unease is gnawing at the legitimacy of British political processes and their interface with the EU. Attention-grabbing though the BNP vote is, the fact that Labour (Leading at the Heart of Europe) was beaten into third place by UKIP is the real story of those EP elections in the UK, giving all the main Parties a lot to think about..

The Internet … is a great multiplier for people with something on their minds. It collects swarms of people who get right down to basic principles, at stunning speed.

The recording industry, newspapers, the world’s banking sector and Westminster expenses have all been hit by shuddering unanticipated shocks in recent years, in good part because of remorseless web-driven scrutiny of their Underpinning Assumptions.

Are plump cosy EU institutions and abstruse EU ways in turn vulnerable to equally disruptive technologies – and popular vexation?

In a few weeks’ time we’ll find out.