Andrew Coyne: Voters need to be sold on the merits of open borders, not have free trade foisted on them
Scott Heppell/AFP/Getty ImagesA St. George's Cross flag adorns a scooter in Redcar, northeast England, on June 27, 2016, as Britain continues to deal with the fallout of its Brexit vote.
A nation is no less sovereign within open borders than closed. It is as much an exercise of sovereignty to permit the free movement of goods, capital and labour across our borders as it is to restrict them.
And yet, in the modern history of the world, that is not how these freedoms have been advanced. Rather, governments have sought to bind each other to do so by treaty. Or rather, governments have sought to be so bound. Instead of persuading voters that open borders are in their own interest, they have told them they have no choice: the leaders, as much as the voters.
Glyn Kirk/AFP/Getty ImagesAn "In or Out" sign is illuminated in Hangleton, near Brighton, England, on June 23, 2016, the day of the Brexit referendum.
This approach — compulsory freedom — had the virtue, from the leaders’ point of view, of releasing them from all responsibility, or indeed logical consistency. They could be for free trade, but also against it. Do not blame me, they could say to this or that domestic interest. If it were up to me, the borders would remain closed. But my hands are tied. We have a treaty.
So the case for free trade was made on essentially protectionist grounds. For a time it worked — multilaterally, under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, later the World Trade Organization; and bilaterally, through the North American Free Trade Agreement and similar treaties.
But of late, the tensions in this strategy have become more evident. Not only has the public been educated to desire the very opposite of what the treaties were intended to achieve — free trade — but they have grown increasingly reluctant to accept it even as a bargain between protectionists. If the only reason to open our borders is because we have to — because people outside our borders tell us we must — then a good many people are prepared to reject this implied surrender of sovereignty.
Of course, as consumers they are in fact more sovereign under free trade: when companies from around the world are competing for your custom, you have a great deal more power in the marketplace than you would at the mercy of some domestic monopoly.
But people are at least as interested in political power as economic. And as trade treaties have grown more ambitious, embracing not only goods but services, and not only trade but capital and labour, so the terms of the implied tradeoff — more choice, less voice — have come to seem more onerous.
Nationalism is more or less defined as a desire that political power — control — should be in the hands of Us, rather than Them.
Which brings us to Brexit. A typically inconsequential debate has erupted over whether Leave voters were more animated by a distrust of foreigners or a desire to “take back control,” but of course it’s both. Nationalism is more or less defined as a desire that political power — control — should be in the hands of Us, rather than Them. But then that presupposes a definition of Us and Them.
The Brits may be the loudest to express it, but the problem for Europe generally is that its separate peoples feel little sense of belonging to the European Union. They are therefore unwilling to submit to its dictates.
Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty ImagesPeople cycle with "Vote Remain" billboards in north London on June 23, 2016, the day of Britain's Brexit referendum.
Far from the overbearing superstate of caricature, the EU is if anything not integrated enough: the crisis over monetary union, for example, has its roots in the absence of a corresponding fiscal union. But governments have not been willing to cede the requisite sovereignty, mostly because neither are their respective publics.
While differences of language and history obviously contribute to that, the governing structure of the EU is as much or more to blame. The European Parliament, though popularly elected, is relatively weak, sharing legislative power with a Council of Ministers drawn from national governments. The EU executive, known as the European Commission, is likewise made up of appointees from member states.
So long as the EU remains primarily answerable to national governments, rather than the voters at large — so long as the really fundamental decisions are made by agreements between leaders, which national parliaments are powerless to amend — then Europeans will not conceive of themselves as a single self-governing people. And so long as that remains the case the EU will remain weak.
This will be familiar to Canadians. (We had our Brexit rebellion 20-odd years ago, in the referendum on the Charlottetown Accord: another agreement between leaders that could not be amended.) Like the Europeans, we still find ourselves unable to perfect our union, and for much the same reason. Though the federal government has the power under the Constitution to strike down internal trade barriers, for example, it has hesitated to do so, feeling it lacked the political legitimacy to take on the provinces.
Why? Because for many Canadians, the federal government is not the government of Us, but of Them. It is not coincidence that, as the powers of the prime minister over Parliament have grown over the years, they have shrunk everywhere outside of it. Democratic reform — a Parliament that is more representative of the public, filled with MPs who are less beholden to party leaders — is in this light not just about making government more accountable but making it more effective.
The same applies more broadly. Brexit should not be the signal to retreat from the vision of a world of open borders. Rather, it is the tactic of imposing it from above that must be rethought. Persuade the public, rather, of the case for free trade on its merits. Or so far as it is to be done by agreements between governments, then their creations must be made more accountable to the people they serve.
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