Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate at the gates of Downing Street in central London after the UK voted to leave the European Union. Credit: Isabel Infantes/PA Wire/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.I recall vividly the moment of encountering a beautiful idea in the library of University College Cork over twenty years ago. I happened across Neil MacCormick’s Beyond the Sovereign State – an articulation of the ideas he would later flesh out in the book Questioning Sovereignty. He showed, based on the European Union, that indivisible sovereignty was a myth, that the sovereign state was a passing phenomenon, and that new ways of living together were possible. These forms of governance give people more say over their lives, with people working together across boundaries – local issues dealt with locally, national ones nationally, and transnational ones in regional institutions. MacCormick lived his ideas too, as an effective Scottish nationalist Member of the European Parliament.
Ten years teaching EU law in England have been revealing. That small nations have greater say in the EU rather than out has been fairly evident in Ireland, and across Europe. One of the founders of European integration, Paul-Henri Spaak, is said to have described Europe as made up of small states, and some that realise they are small. Smaller states understand that they give up some formal autonomy, and gain greater influence. That understanding has never resonated in England. Nor have the costs of borders and boundaries, which are stark in living memory on the island of Ireland, and the European continental mainland.
Small nations have greater say in the EU rather than out.
