The Spectator’s Notes | 31 May 2018

To understand how the European Union works, and how it doesn’t, it helps to think of it as an empire. Empires are not fashionable just now, but they have their uses. At their best — Rome, Britain — they are capable of upholding common standards, preserving peace and prosperity, and helping civilisation flourish. The EU has often achieved some of these things. But when empires are challenged by significant numbers of their inhabitants, their fundamental lack of legitimacy is exposed. The EU has now reached this stage because of imperial overstretch and imperialist doctrines — the euro and mass immigration being the most important. Anti-imperial independence movements take many forms. Brexit is one. The Italian revolt — a financial version of Spartacus’ rebellion — is another. The determination of the Visegrad 4 to control their borders is a third. In the short term, empires can squash these uprisings — look how brutally Brussels and Berlin put down the Greeks — but they lose in the end. Their more intelligent leaders recognise this. Britain eventually saw the writing on the wall and invented the Commonwealth as a decorous retreat. The EU should do likewise, and re-form as a friendly association of free countries, trading freely. Perhaps a nice name for it would be the Common Market.

Starbucks will close all its outlets for four working hours to train its staff out of ‘unconscious bias’, a decision which surely shows unconscious bias against all customers who might want a cup of coffee that day. The training was ordered after a member of staff called the police when two black customers came in and one asked to use the lavatory without buying anything. I wonder if the BBC might try such a shutdown on a grander scale.