Dominic Rider is right about the moment we are in. The transatlantic guarantee is wobbling; Europe is being reminded, again, that dependence is not a strategy. When Washington treats alliances as transactional, Europeans either grow up fast or get pushed around slowly. The Liberal Democrats should say what comes next.
Where I part company with Dominic is on the destination. He argues for “confederation, not a superstate”. That contrast misses the real problem. Europe already exercises power: the single market sets rules, sanctions shape foreign policy, and standards shape economies. The question is not whether Europe will have power; it is whether that power is democratically governed and has clear lines of responsibility.
A confederation keeps the fog. It offers reassurance, but it leaves the constitutional flaw untouched: paralysis. Dominic is right that unanimity lets one government block action. Qualified majority voting helps, but procedure alone will not fix a system designed to avoid clarity. A Europe that wants to act like a strategic player needs institutions built for action, not for reassuring capitals.
Federalism is the democratic solution. A federal United States of Europe is not the abolition of nations; it is the constitutional ordering of shared power. It means voters can see who governs, what they control, and how to change course. That is not a “superstate”. It is power placed under law, limited by a written settlement, and answerable to citizens.
The principle is simple: do together what must be done together; keep the rest close to home. Defence, trade, external borders, major infrastructure, and climate commitments belong at the federal level because they are cross-border by nature. Taxation, welfare, health, education, culture, and constitutional arrangements should remain national, devolved, or local because diversity is a strength. Subsidiarity should not be a slogan; it should be enforceable.
Defence is the acid test. Pooled procurement is valuable, but deterrence cannot rest on voluntary top-ups and ad hoc deals that unravel whenever politics shift. If Europeans want strategic autonomy, they need a single security actor: capability planning that matches threats, industrial scale to reduce duplication, and a chain of command that is democratically accountable. Committees do not deter revisionist powers; credible forces and clear commitments do.
The “superstate” fear is real, but it is misaimed. What people resent is unaccountable decision-making. The EU already has a far-reaching influence, just in a hybrid form where citizens struggle to “throw the rascals out”. Federalism does not add power for fun; it puts existing power under democratic control, clarifies competencies, and makes responsibility legible.
That is also the British opportunity. Public opinion has shifted; more voters now believe Brexit was a mistake. Yet that sentiment will remain politically inert unless someone offers a serious answer to the next question: rejoin to do what? Labour treats Europe as a problem to be managed, not an opportunity to be seized. Conservatives are trapped by their own coalition. The Liberal Democrats have the freedom, and the duty, to lead.
But leading means more than tiptoeing back into yesterday’s Europe. People can smell timidity. They will not rally to “rejoin, but change nothing”. A federal programme is clearer: Britain should return to help build a Europe that can defend itself, compete economically, and uphold liberal values, not just with speeches.
So what should Liberal Democrats argue for? Treaty reform towards a constitutional settlement: an elected European executive accountable to an elected parliament; a senate of states to protect national voice through transparent votes; majority decision-making where collective action is required; and hard subsidiarity so everything not explicitly federal stays closer to the citizen. That is how you make European power democratic.
Dominic’s confederation is offered as reassurance. I understand the impulse. But reassurance is not a strategy, and half-measures do not survive hard times. The liberal case for Europe has always been rules over might, cooperation over coercion, and shared institutions over nationalist rivalry. In this decade, that case has to grow up.
Yes, Britain should return. Not to an arrangement forever stuck between being a market and being a polity, but to help build a United States of Europe: federal, democratic, limited, and strong enough to defend the liberal order it claims to represent.
* Jack Meredith is a member of the Welsh Liberal Democrats and an active campaigner and canvasser with Swansea and Gower Liberal Democrats. His writing focuses on democratic reform, social justice, trade unionism, economic democracy, and the institutional foundations of effective government. He has written for the Fabians, Lib Dem Voice, Liberator, Nation Cymru, Bylines Cymru, and Centre Think Tank.
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12 Comments
Yes, Britain should return. Not to an arrangement forever stuck between being a market and being a polity, but to help build a United States of Europe”
Personally feel that such a structure should evolve rather than be pushed vigorously. The words “ever closer Union” cover it, along with “reform in order to preserve”.
That said, at moments such as these evolution can happen very quickly!
Tactically(*) I think it is better only to call for membership of the Single Market and a new Customs Union. That is likely to be more palatable to those Conservatives who find Reform obnoxious than out and out calls for a European state now.
(*) Badenoch has just rejected the ideas of the “Prosper” group, as well as rejecting Reform. It’s hard to see what the Conservative party leadership does stand for now. We may be witnessing the death of the Conservative Party akin to what happened to the Liberals in the 1920s.
I know one of the signatories of the Prosper declaration – a bit – he was the County Councillor for the division where I live. He’s apparently going around openly saying “I’m a liberal”. Where his journey will end up I don’t know.
Jack, thank you for this thoughtful response. It’s genuinely encouraging that Liberal Democrat Voice has now hosted two articles in a week making the case for deeper European integration.
I want to be clear about where we agree: if a federal settlement is achievable—democratically legitimate, with enforceable subsidiarity, and supported by European publics—I would welcome it. Your constitutional logic is sound. Power should be accountable, competencies should be clear, and “ever closer union” deserves a destination, not just a direction.
My concern is feasibility, not principle. The EU has had seventy years of opportunities to federalise and hasn’t taken them. The Constitutional Treaty failed. Lisbon was salvage work. The eurozone crisis produced emergency mechanisms, not fiscal union. France guards nuclear autonomy jealously—Macron has been explicit that the Force de Frappe is French, not European. These aren’t accidents; they reflect deep preferences among European electorates and elites.
So I frame confederation as the maximum integration achievable while preserving democratic consent; not comfort. If I’m wrong and federation proves possible, wonderful. But if the choice is between holding out for a federal settlement that may never arrive and building confederal structures that can be built now, I’ll take the latter.
The real divide isn’t between us. It’s between liberals who want Britain back in a reformed Europe—whether federal or confederal—and those content with managed decline outside it. On that question, we’re firmly allied.
“A federal United States of Europe is not the abolition of nations” you might want to ask the various States of the USA whether they agree that their Federal constitution has result in the abolition of their State as an independent entity or not.
“Federalism does not add power for fun; it puts existing power under democratic control, clarifies competencies, and makes responsibility legible.” If you think that the US Constitution has protected Minnesota from the exercise of power by the Federal Government then I think you are wrong.
“Public opinion has shifted; more voters now believe Brexit was a mistake.” Maybe but I think you are going beyond the known facts if you think that believing Brexit was a mistake is the same as assuming, as you appear to do, that British voters are now in favour of “ever closer union”
” I think you are going beyond the known facts if you think that believing Brexit was a mistake is the same as assuming, as you appear to do, that British voters are now in favour of “ever closer union””
I think you are absolutely right. In today’s very fast moving politics Federation or Confederation is for another day, possibly even the Greek Calands depending on how events unfold.
We have to concentrate on making the spit on the right permanent while keeping Reform out of power.
Prior to the US civil war, the ‘United States of America’ was used as a plural such as “The United States are in favour of free enterprise” but after the civil war were used in the singular such as “The United States is in favour of free enterprise”. The reason is simple – prior to the Civil War, the states believed that the USA was a voluntary ‘confederacy’ of sovereign states, but the war showed that view was wrong. Individual states could not leave – they had lost their ultimate sovereignty. The Civil War showed that the USA was the ultimate sovereign entity of which individual states were mere parts.
The fact that the UK could hold a referendum on leaving the EU without requiring the permission of the EU for so doing, proved that the UK retained its sovereignty while a member of the EU. That should be the only basis on which we rejoin the EU.
Much of what Jack Meredith writes is perfectly valid.
However he does make one glaringly obvious fudge:
“A federal United States of Europe is not the abolition of nations.. “
It may not be the abolition of nations; but, he’s really meaning countries and it is the abolition of them.
In the TV show “Pointless” , we regularly hear “And by ‘country’ we mean a sovereign state that is a member of the UN in its own right” So whereas Wales and Scotland may consider themselves to be nations they don’t qualify as a country.
The original 13 States of the US were countries, before the UN existed to help us out with a definition. They had governments and their own currencies. If they hadn’t decided to federate we would have had Massachusetts and Virginia as countries according to the ‘Pointless’ definition.
If the EU countries decide to federate they won’t be countries any longer. Just as hardly anyone knows, or cares, who is the governor of Maryland not many will know, or care, who is the President of France. It will be the President of the EU who matters just like the President of the USA.
It would perhaps be good if the EU countries do federate. I’d say they should, if they want to keep the euro and have a meaningful Parliament; but, it has to be up to them. Not many of us, including most former remainers, want to be a part of it though.
Joan Summers is right. Another example is that during the war of 1812 some New England politicians were so unhappy that they considered succeeding from the USA.
“The fact that the UK could hold a referendum on leaving the EU without requiring the permission of the EU for so doing, proved that the UK retained its sovereignty while a member of the EU”
Actually we did require the EU’s tacit permission. Once any country accepts the supremacy of EU law it is always possible for the EU to block any move to exit the EU.
Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty (2009), the legal mechanism for a member state to leave the EU, was included due to the insistence of the United Kingdom.
So does this mean that there was no legal pathway for us to leave the EU prior to 2009?
Peter Martin – Greenland held a referendum in 1982 in which it voted to leave the European Community, so if there had been a British government between 1973 and 2009 where the majority of MPs (or indeed a cross-party majority) favoured leaving the EC/EU, it could have done likewise, but even during the Thatcher era, opinion was pro-membership:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Greenlandic_European_Communities_membership_referendum
@ Paul,
According to the Wiki article you provided:
“The result of the referendum was a majority in favour of leaving the EC, and this was enacted by the Greenland Treaty, which allowed the EC to keep its fishing rights.[2]
Greenland continues to be considered one of the Overseas Countries and Territories of the EU, giving it a special relationship with the Union.”
What would have happened if the EC hadn’t been able to keep its fishing rights? Would it have had the legal power to prevent Greenland at least partially leaving?
Peter Martin 29th Jan ’26 – 10:29am:
So does this mean that there was no legal pathway for us to leave the EU prior to 2009?
Prior to the Lisbon Treaty, which specified an agreed method of leaving in Article 50, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties would have applied. This discourages the unilateral denunciation of treaties, but specifies when it’s acceptable to do so. One such reason being a fundamental and unforeseen change of circumstances. That could have been met by a democratic decision to leave the EU held in accordance with the European Commission for Democracy Through Law (Venice Commission): Code of Good Practice on Referendums (simple 50% majority).
@Peter Martin “What would have happened if the EC hadn’t been able to keep its fishing rights? Would it have had the legal power to prevent Greenland at least partially leaving?”
Greenland wasn’t a signatory to the Treaty of Rome (et al.) as it was a county of Denmark at the time of accession, so it is an unusual case. While it certainly needed Denmark’s permission to leave, which it had, you might argue that the EC (as it was then) could have refused to accept it (they could certainly have refused OCT status) (although Saint Pierre and Miquelon withdrew unilaterally in 1985 upon obtaining Home Rule). However, a Member State in its own right such as Denmark would have been a signatory to a treaty and could have (presumably) repudiated it had they wished to.
In any case, the point is academic post-Lisbon Treaty; the right to and process of withdrawal is encoded in the Treaty of Lisbon and is recognised as a unilateral right; the agreement of the EU, or the other member states, “tacit” or otherwise, is not required.