OPINION
If there was one left-wing politician I’ve always had a lot of respect for it was Roy Jenkins. He was a UK Labour MP, albeit on the right wing of the party, a cabinet minister in the Wilson Governments; Home Secretary, and Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was then appointed President of the European Commission in 1977. Once his term ended he returned to British politics, forming the Social Democratic Party in 1981.
He later became Chancellor of Oxford University. Jenkins also managed to find time to write numerous books. Roy Jenkins was a “European” from day one; a globalist and instrumental in ensuring Britain joined the EU in 1973 by famously leading 58 other Labour MPs in crossing the floor to vote in favour of the legislation.
One of the things I particularly admire about Roy Jenkins is his complete honesty. In his autobiography A Life at the Centre, he was frank about his finances (in contrast to ‘others’), but also his visions for globalism; if you compare what he wrote with what has happened since, it’s quite extraordinary to tick off the number of things which have indeed come to pass.
As is often the case with history, it’s complicated; I shall paraphrase a bit. Roy Jenkins, both in his autobiography and in the decades leading up to writing it, argued that globalism was the future and parochialism or nationalism is foolish; that there is something a bit silly about, say, people in Yorkshire having insular prejudices about people in, say, Tuscany in the age of air travel, immigration, and world trade.
He made a convincing case by asking “Does it really matter” if national boundaries were broken down, if people can live anywhere, and enjoy a great lifestyle making a life for themselves and their families? There are, of course, places like the Bordeaux region of France where wine is made, and Veneto in Italy where they make cheese, or Detroit for cars; the scenery in Alaska is better than in Essex, but there really is nothing to fear from ending national boundaries and allowing people to live where they want.
The reason I mention Roy Jenkins is because in his heyday he and other globalists (such as Ted Heath) sold it in a very plausible way. You could buy new things, eat new things, visit exotic places on a package holiday (rather than only during a war), and work for a company exporting to 108 different places. You don’t need to be drab, insular, and miss out on all the fun. And they were correct to a degree – in my own town of Mosgiel you can order almost anything you can think of and have it delivered; you can also be anywhere in the world in 24 hours.
Jenkins, Heath, and even people like Roger Douglas, were “plausible”. They were elected for one thing; they were seen as urbane, and cosmopolitan, and promised to enhance what already existed (i.e. new food, new toys, new products to go with your existing stuff). Life would get better. In this they mostly delivered.
But once globalism descended into “Oh you’ll live in a shoebox apartment watching Netflix, own nothing, and be happy”, said by creepy looking “Bong Villain” types, along with sex changes, novel vaccines and fake news, the plausibility drained away and continues to do so. As I’ve written before – Machiavelli warned about ‘scaring the horses’; about causing people to remember what has been taken away from them. I wonder if Roy Jenkins would be having second thoughts too?