A vote for Remain is a vote for freedom

If the UK votes to stay, this would not signal a loss of autonomy, in the same way that choosing to become a member of any institution with certain rules of conduct does not mean I become any less free

A vote to remain within the EU would not infringe our freedom as a country (Getty Images)

Freedom has been, from the start, the core value in the rhetoric of the Leave campaign with regards to the upcoming EU referendum. Boris Johnson has called for people to “choose freedom” and Nigel Farage has said that the 23^rd of June could be “independence day” for the UK, if it chose to leave the EU. However, the way that the Leave campaign understands freedom is one-sided, and even mistaken. In fact, correctly understood, the Remain campaign’s ideal is also freedom, and ultimately its claim should be that by remaining a member of the EU, the UK would be more free than if it didn’t.

In his classic essay Two Concepts of Liberty, Isaiah Berlin made a distinction between positive freedom and negative freedom. Roughly, negative freedom represents freedom from various constraints and interferences, whereas positive freedom represents freedom to do things of one’s own self-determined volition. One way of understanding negative freedom is indeed as freedom from external interference, and one way to understand positive freedom is as autonomy, the freedom to legislate for oneself, to decide the laws that one is bound to.

One of the Leave campaign’s main arguments is that by being a member of the EU, the UK is not free to be the author of its own laws. In the terms of Berlin’s distinction, the concern is that being a member of the EU undermines Britain’s autonomy. Of course this is to some extent true, some of the laws that the UK is bound to are not voted in the UK parliament, but in the European one. But, that does not mean that the UK is not an autonomous, free country. For the UK has freely decided to bind itself to the laws of the EU. This is a voluntary participation, and one that can be terminated at any point by a UK government, or in fact directly by the UK’s citizens next month. But if the UK votes to stay, this would not signal a loss of autonomy, in the same way that choosing to become a member of any institution with certain rules of conduct does not mean I become any less free, as I have chosen to bind myself to those rules.

The Leave campaign’s claim that the UK’s autonomy is compromised because it is bound by EU legislation is also mistaken because of the way that legislation is decided on. EU legislation is not conjured up by some arbitrary despot, or ‘faceless bureaucrats’ as is often said. These laws are democratically decided upon in the European parliament, with the participation of the UK’s representatives, who are directly elected by the citizens of this country. The UK is active in the decision making process that shapes EU legislation.

Leave campaign representatives have argued, however, that the UK is often outvoted in the EU parliament (although it still gets its way more than 85 per cent of the time). In the context of domestic politics, this argument would amount to the citizens of a certain area of the country claiming that they are not free because the party they vote for sometimes doesn’t make it into government. However, that is a misunderstanding of democracy and freedom. Those who get outvoted in a democratic election are still equal members of the autonomous, democratic group, and in that sense, free.

So much for positive freedom, what about negative freedom? The Leave campaign claims that the EU doesn’t allow the UK to always do what it wants, and that amounts to limiting the UK’s negative freedom. That’s certainly true. So a UK government, say, might want to turn away EU citizens that arrive at its borders, but as things currently stand, the EU laws won’t allow it. But the limiting of one’s negative freedom in a political context usually also means a gain in negative freedom. By living in a country where murder is illegal, my freedom to murder someone is limited. But then, so is everyone else’s, resulting in preventing others from murdering me, something that would limit quite significantly my ability to do what I want. The UK might have given away its freedom to close down its borders to other EU citizens, but at the same time UK citizens gain the freedom to cross the borders of all other EU countries without any interference, freely.

And that is one way the Remain campaign’s argument should be construed: The freedom that the UK gains by being a member of the EU is greater than the freedom it gives up. Having access to the common market, having the freedom of movement, of trade, freedom of selling services etc. is far greater a gain in freedom than the freedom the UK gives up. Just like the freedom I enjoy from not being murdered by my fellow citizens is much greater than the freedom I lose from not being allowed to murder myself. Most of those on the Leave side of the campaign of course recognise the enormous benefits that come with the freedoms that the common market provides. The argument often is that somehow the UK would be able to negotiate its way into enjoying these freedoms, without giving up any of its own. That would be the equivalent of wanting to live in a society where I am the only member that enjoys all same rights as everyone else, but has none of the corresponding obligations. It is unlikely that the members of that fictional society would agree to that.

At the start of this piece I defined Berlin’s concept of positive freedom as autonomy. There is at least one more way of understanding positive freedom, and that is as effective freedom. Effective freedom amounts to having the power and ability to act in the way one wants, and not merely the absence of an external constraint. Even if one grants to the Leave campaign that the UK’s freedom would be increased in the negative sense if it left, in that it will be free of the external constraint that is the EU, its effective freedom might in fact diminish. The argument that the Remain campaign often makes is that the UK will be less powerful to do the things it wants, for example strike international trade deals, be able to influence global issues such as climate change etc., and so even though it would be nominally free to do so, effectively it wouldn’t, as it wouldn’t have the power to strike such deals or the capacity to influence the rest of the world. By being a member of the EU, then, the UK’s effective freedom is greater than if it were not, as being a member of the EU makes the UK more powerful and able to ultimately achieve its goals.

The Leave campaign has had a monopoly over the value of freedom at the rhetorical level, but when it comes to actual arguments, the Leave campaign’s understanding of freedom is one-sided and misleading. The Remain campaign has focussed on the economic benefits that come with EU membership, shying away from engaging with arguments to do with freedom. Freedom, however, is an emotive ideal, capable of motivating voters, especially those who feel less powerful in society and who yearn for some control over their lives. Those who support the UK’s membership of the EU should not allow citizens to be misguided by the idea that a vote to leave the EU is a vote for freedom.

Alexis Papazoglou is lecturer in philosophy at Royal Holloway