Anglo Diversity vs. Franco Centralisation

The clash of cultures that exists at the heart of the EU is between the French way of doing things and the British way. One is the culture of Centralisation, the other, the culture of Diversification. It’s not that one way is better than the other, they’re not. They are just different, but it is important to understand how they are different in order to understand how we go forward.

The way to explain the difference between the French and British way of doing things, is to look at a typically mundane piece of public policy and observe the approach of the two countries. The example I will use is Domestic Recycling.

In France, the whole country puts out their recycling using the same system. The recycling bags are a different colour for glass, paper and plastic. This ensures that wherever you are, you know how to do your recycling. Centralisation makes life simple.

The British choose not to impose a central system upon the people, for fear that central planning will quash the inventiveness of policy makers and service providers. This means that each of the 600 Local Authorities across the country have adopted their own system for recycling. If you go to stay in a different part of the country, or even, another London Borough, you will find a different system that you are unfamiliar with and you will become confused. This is bad for recycling, since the ease of recycling is proportionate to the amounts of rubbish that get recycled.

However, because of the lack of central control, the diversity model allows the system to change and adapt. In Britain, a new processing-plant invention came along. All the rubbish is chucked on a conveyorbelt, and lasers identify which item is plastic, glass, and paper. Then jets of air fire the plastic into one hopper, the glass into another and the paper into its own hopper. So councils began to request that households put out just one bag containing all recycling, rather than separating it. This is a better way, since the ease of recycling is proportionate to the amounts of rubbish that get recycled. So the Diversity model adapts.

This is not a devolution argument. I’m not talking about local or national government. It’s simply a question of when it is appropriate for policy makers to micromanage or not. A good example of Centralised and Diversified policy existing side by side is in British Education policy. The National Curriculum is imposed by National government, yet schools are given incentives for their management to opt out of government control through the Grant Maintained policy. So the curriculum policy is Centralised but the management policy is Diversified. So the British recognise when it is useful to Centralise.

The different philosophies affect wider policy. The French wish to centralise makes a smaller Europe more desirable, since centralisation becomes increasingly burdensome the larger the community. The British desire to diversify tends to encourage an expanded community, since diversity, by its nature, has no boundaries.

The current predicament of wavering between the Centralised and Diversified systems does tend to cause confusion and fudge. We end up with a constitution that’s really just a tidying up exercise. A free market, with massive subsidies. A diplomatic unity, that can be divided by the will of a single southern African dictator. We need to decide when it is appropriate for Centralisation and when is it appropriate for Diversification, before we can counter the bigger threats facing the European Union.

Dan McCurry practices as a Solicitor in East London