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Brexit Is Nothing Like German Unification

Brexit Is Nothing Like German Unification

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- A Twitter controversy raged on Thursday and Friday about leading Brexiter Michael Gove’s speech at the German embassy in London, in which he came so close to drawing a parallel between Brexit and German reunification of 1990 that some of the audience heckled him. Whatever Gove actually meant, the discussion of his speech shows the danger of frivolous historical references in the context of today’s controversial political decisions.

Gove, a member of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s cabinet, was at the embassy on German Unity Day, the nation’s main holiday, celebrated in memory of West Germany and East Germany coming together in 1990. He started by speaking admiringly of a series of post-World War II German statesmen – Konrad Adenauer, Ludwig Erhard, Willy Brandt and finally Helmut Kohl, who oversaw the reunification as chancellor. 

“The example of modern Germany reminds us how important it is to come together,” Gove said, “it also shows that we can come together quickly when we recognize how important it is to set aside divisions.” Then, without any transition from this anodyne statement, moved on to Brexit: “Britain made its democratic decision three years ago to leave the European Union.”

To some people in the room, this sounded like an attempt to compare the U.K.’s vote in the 2016 referendum with Germany’s reunification. Peter Neumann, a professor at Kings College, tweeted:

Others present, including William Wright, founder of the New Financial think tank, and Wolfgang Blau, chief operating officer at publishing giant Conde Nast International Ltd., shared Neumann’s interpretation that Gove was subtly making a link between East Germany’s break from Soviet rule and the U.K.’s departure from the EU. 

Germans – and Neumann and Blau are German – can be sensitive to false equivalences involving their nation’s thorny history. Brexiters, on the other hand, are known to be fond of such parallels. They repeatedly, and unnecessarily, have dragged World War II and Britain’s part in winning it into the Brexit discussion. Last year, Jeremy Hunt, then the U.K. foreign secretary, likened the EU to the Soviet Union, drawing ire throughout Europe.

Yet it wasn’t just Germans but also British listeners who jeered and rolled their eyes, according to eyewitness accounts, when Gove appeared to be drawing one of those frivolous comparisons.

Gove later denied that he meant to make the Soviet comparison and accused Neumann of trying to “weaponize” his speech for his “own agenda.” But whether Neumann and others in the audience misunderstood him or not, their reactions show clearly what a terribly divisive event Brexit is.

That’s an important, defining difference between Brexit and the German reunification. While there was no perfect unanimity about it in Germany, in 1991, according to Pew Research, 79% of West Germans and 89% of East Germans approved of it. Gove praised Kohl as the leader who “in a supreme act of statesmanship managed to bring the people of Germany together in a unity that we celebrate today.” But what Kohl did was desirable, or at least reasonable, to an overwhelming majority of Germans. The resistance he faced mostly came from overseas. U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was against a united Germany, and even asked Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to do what he could to stop it. 

Gove is right about Kohl’s main legacy: Acting in the interests of his people even though some of his fellow world leaders were apprehensive about the consequences was a supreme act of statesmanship. But by that token, no one should speak of Brexit in the same breath. The 2016 vote was close, and it pitted the majority of voters of Scotland and Northern Ireland (stay) against those of England and Wales (leave). There was no case for trying to overcome the open dismay of the U.K.’s EU allies after such a polarizing vote. Kohl was a statesman; Brexiteers are partisans.

As recorded by the official transcript, Gove’s speech was milquetoast and boring. But in today's fraught situation – with the parliament pitted against the prime minister, the public furiously split, and a majority of Britons feeling that an exit by the Oct. 31 deadline is unlikely – it appears blithely hypocritical of a U.K. minister to discuss Germany’s erasure of an internal border while the cabinet plots a new border in Ireland and perhaps lays the foundations for the breakup of the U.K.

Perhaps Gove truly didn’t hear the false note in his speech. But the U.K. urgently needs leaders able to think clearly about the meaning of Kohl’s example. It’s the unifiers who are remembered gratefully, not the dividers.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Leonid Bershidsky is Bloomberg Opinion's Europe columnist. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru.

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