As a British diplomat once languidly observed, the trouble with the whole debate on Europe is that there is too much religion and not enough politics. It is like the feud in the early Christian Church between those who believed that Christ was of the same substance as the Father, and those who said He was of a similar but not identical substance. Was He homoousios or homoiousios? You might say it didn’t make an iota of difference – and yet that iota was the cause of strife that cost thousands of lives.
It is like the dispute between the Big Enders and the Little Enders about the best way of cracking an egg. The technicalities of the question recede in importance – and yet the factions grow louder on either side, fuelled with mutual suspicion, and the rights and wrongs are lost in the splendours of the civil war.
