Gisela Stuart MPWorking hard for Bartley Green, Edgbaston, Harborne and Quinton

Identity, not history, divides my two countries; I was born in Germany and live in Britain. The euro crisis reveals a fundamental difference // December 16th, 2011 // Speeches, Articles and Interviews

Article by Gisela Stuart MP,    The Times 15 December 2011, Page: 30

‘You don’t come from here, do you?” the guy at the bus depot asked.

“Why do you say that?”

“You don’t sound it.”

“I’m the Edgbaston MP.”

“Yeah, but where are you from?”

“Guess.”

“You sound German.”

“You got it.” He was pleased to be right and without further comment we went off to find the hybrid electric buses.

“Not coming from here” applies to most of us who have made Birmingham our home. There are few true Brummies but plenty by choice. Over the years some groups may have found it harder than others to fit in.After the pub bombings in the 1970s it took a long time before the city and the Irish community were ready for a St Patrick’s Day parade. More recently being Muslim hasn’t been easy. These things come and go.

I came to England in 1974, having almost failed English in my German matriculation, and touted my wares as an apprentice bookseller. Despite my English, I got a job. At that time coming from Germany was seen as a good thing. Germany represented economic competence compared with Britain’s industrial anarchy. In 1997 when I first stood for Parliament a woman voter was quite explicit about it: she had voted for me because “no German would put up with the decline in law and order we’ve seen here”.

When, in 2004, Birmingham City Council tried to replace the German Christmas market with Ye Olde English Christmas Fayre there was an outcry. The decision was reversed and the councillor responsible had to resign. The city now hosts the largest authentic German Christmas market outside Germany. Two years later when Germany hosted the World Cup its transition to a successful modern state was complete.

But I am now troubled about the relationship between the country of my birth and the country of my choice. There is nothing in Britain like the enmity towards Berlin expressed in countries such as Italy. And despite jokes about the war, the eurozone crisis has failed to ignite real anger here. Instead the two countries are struggling with incomprehension.

Despite our history, Britain and Germany share much in common. But British national identity is embodied in its institutions - the rule of law, the monarchy and parliamentary sovereignty. By contrast, Germany’s self-image is tied to economic success. This underpins the legitimacy of the political system: the Zollverein (customs union) preceded the German nation, just as Ludwig Erhard’s economic miracle underpinned the postwar Federal Republic. That’s why Germans can’t understand why Britons get so worked up about national sovereignty.

Germany looks East and West and feels comfortable in the re-creation of Mitteleuropa as a political entity. Perhaps it’s time to get those books off the shelf and read a bit of late 19th and early 20th-century history. Germany has come to terms with its past. This is largely understood and accepted by its neighbours, despite all the references to the Second World War.

What is not necessarily appreciated is that the most striking change in recent decades is that Germany has become almost entirely pacifist. It goes to great lengths to avoid conflict, even if it stands accused of not accepting its responsibilities, as it did over Libya. There is a whole generation for whom the link between Nazism and today’s Germany is a piece of history: job done.

What the British also forget is that the entire European project is, and has always been, about the relationship between France and Germany (though it wasn’t the EU that ensured peace, it was Nato). Whatever happens, Germany will always ultimately side with France. This was as true for Helmut Kohl during the 1990s as it was for Angela Merkel last week, and this is a problem for Britain.

Sometimes I imagine a conversation with Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister who returned from Munich in 1938 hailing “peace in our time”. I tell him that in 1997 his Edgbaston constituency will be won by a woman, a socialist, one born near Munich; but he need not worry, it came about peacefully and democratically. I think he’d be pleased.

The euro crisis is economically bad for us all, but in the long run worse for Germany. Hostile reactions in Greece and Italy are unlikely to go away. If Germany is seen as responsible for removing democratically elected governments and replacing them with bureaucrats, imposing economic disciplines that won’t work in the long run, then it will be demonised again.

The 17-state eurozone won’t work even if every country in it behaves like the Germans. They can’t all export their way out of trouble and German pockets aren’t deep enough to make the year-on-year transfers that would be necessary. The peripheral countries will take the pain and, rightly or wrongly, Germany will be blamed. Yet again, Britain is likely to have a big role in sorting out the mess.

Gisela Stuart is Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston

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