My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleydoomed to ultimate ineffectiveness until Europe is made.It has been to me a tragedy that my own country was for years the main impedimentto the making of Europe. We have passed beyond the days when British policy triedto straddle the world between America, Europe and the Commonwealth, with an endas inevitable as it was ignoble of falling between three stools. We have evolvedbeyond the point when a future Prime Minister could say he knew in his bones weshould not enter Europe, with more than full support from the ardent obscurantism ofthe Labour leaders, headed in the past by their most admired Foreign Secretary, Bevin.The British Government now stands at the end of a queue of humble applicants toenter Europe. I begged my fellow countrymen to take a decision and to persist in theinitiative to enter and to make Europe in 1948, nine years before the Common Marketbegan and ten years before General de Gaulle came to power.Even today Europe, with good reason, puts to Britain the simple but still unansweredquestion: 'Do you enter as Europeans or as American agents?' I believe as a dedicated,some may say fanatical, European, there is good ground to postpone the real makingof Europe until this question is clearly answered. It is true that neither France nor anyother of our divided nations can play the role of Europe in the world until the powerof Europe is available; consequently we are all doomed to relative impotence untilEurope is made. On the other hand, to turn Europe from a collection of smallAmerican satellites into one large transatlantic satellite would make things worserather than better. At present, it is open to France or to any other European country tooffer some resistance to that process, thus preserving some national and Europeanidentity. But as mere cogs in an international machine—seeking the best and gettingthe worst of all worlds—Britain, France, Germany, Italy— Europe itself—could beirretrievably lost.The full development of Europe is halted at present before the dilemma that withoutBritain Europe cannot entirely function, and with Britain Europe might cease to exist.The answer is for Britain to become truly European, and then to take the foot off thebrake and tread on the accelerator in a hard drive for complete union. Such thingshave happened in our history before; the British people are sadly slow to start—noone has been more frustrated and infuriated by this characteristic than I have been—but once they begin, they can be among the foremost in speed and action.My insistence on the making of a united and independent Europe may suggest anattitude hostile to America. On the contrary, I have a long and consistent record ofadvocating fidelity to our American alliance and friendship with the American people.The desire to be a man's friend but not his dependent is surely a right and properattitude. America has more to gain from a strong partner than a weak satellite, and todo it justice, it has always sought to promote rather than to hinder the union of Europe;an attitude unique in its generosity, because history shows no other example of a greatpower trying deliberately to create another great power. This should be remembered,together with the assistance Europe received in days of adversity, when we no longerrequire either American assistance or protection.Our alliances should be for purposes of mutual defence and not for the sharing orsupport of unnecessary adventures. If the soil or vital interests of Europe or Americawere assailed by the communist powers, we should rally immediately to each other's391 of 424