The right will want a United States of Europe

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Auberon Waugh, son of novelist Evelyn, died a quarter of a century ago this month. The old man’s judgment is unlikely to match the ruling, yet he engaged in journalism. He had a respectable career in fantasy as well. Unlike his father, a conservative, he had at least one interesting opinion.

He was a right-wing pro-European. Almost everywhere, attitudes toward Brussels tend to harden the further right you move on the political spectrum. Wu Jr. bucked this rule, seeing Europe as a potential bulwark against American cultural influence and other modern atrocities. He loved the European project because it was reactionary, not in spite of it. His closest modern equivalent is Jeremy Clarkson, the unlikely figure among the Remainers.

Expect more of this in the future. The right, primarily the hard right, should prefer a United States of Europe. Over time, I think this will happen, at least on the continent, if not in Britain. A united Europe, an issue long associated with liberals, will begin to appeal to traditionalists as the only hope against the reckless, technologically ascendant great powers of the West (America) and the East (China). It will be framed as a matter of cultural survival.

There is a pedigree here. The basic unity of Europe was a conservative theme – think “Christendom” – before it was a liberal idea. Even the founding of the European Union had a Catholic tinge. Robert Schumann, the “Father of Europe”, is on his way to beatification. A decade or so ago, Europeans who cherished their country’s particularities could still tell themselves that Brussels posed their main threat. Now, there are scarier things than regulatory standardization.

There is no longer just a liberal argument for a unified continent, but rather one about numerical strength in the face of external predators.

Today’s hard right will not be the one embracing Europe. It is true that Marine Le Pen has softened her stance towards the European Union in order to expand her electoral appeal in France. Giorgia Meloni has been more cooperative with Brussels than ever expected. The British always overestimate the power of Euroscepticism on the continent, hence the failure of Brexit to cause a domino effect.

But Le Pen’s generation cannot make the psychological leap from tolerating European integration to glorifying it. Next generation maybe. A subculture of pro-European propaganda has recently flourished on the Internet: some inspiring, some unnerving in its aggressiveness. It’s to be expected from people who have grown up seeing their continent being squeezed by tariffs, technology and Greenland.

I don’t encourage these things. “My” Europe is a technocratic Europe characterized by Mario Draghi’s rhetoric and court rulings against anti-competitive practices. But my discomfort is exactly the point. There is no longer just a liberal argument for a unified continent, but rather one of numerical strength in the face of external predators. When Wu said he longed to be ruled by “a junta of Belgian ticket inspectors,” China was still a marginal challenge and the United States overwhelmingly friendly. Imagine his enthusiasm for that junta now.

Hard-right European federalist: You might say that such a thing makes sense on paper, but not in real life, like the Penrose Triangle. Well, a decade ago, it would have been equally difficult to imagine a pro-Kremlin American Republican. Or even too protectionist. It is possible that the movement will not only change its mind, but completely reverse it.

In fact, listen to the language of the hard right closely, and you will see that they are already part of the path toward a United States of Europe position. The current fashion for “European civilization” or “Western civilization” implicitly downplays the importance of the nation-state. (What self-respecting language in the 1990s would have made a fuss about “civilization”? The unit that matters is the state.)

People have slipped into this way of speaking without fully realizing its implications. If the culture under siege is on a continental scale, involving hundreds rather than tens of millions of people, then so must be the government charged with protecting it. No single European country is big enough in this world of hostile giants. And when the hard right eventually jumps on the federalism bandwagon, some of us won’t know whether to ask: “What kept you?” Or jump directly.

Email Janan at janan.ganesh@ft.com

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