As the free trade paradigm continues to erode, its advocates are beginning to look for alternatives. One of these has struck a chord not only with neoliberals, but also with a number of conservatives and traditionalists: the CANZUK proposal.
For those unfamiliar, the project aims to create some sort of trade and security pact between the Anglosphere countries of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. Cooperation and ties between the Anglosphere countries is of course to be desired, and it is understandable that many who admire the traditions of the Empire and the cultural unity of the English world would be attracted to such a proposal. At least one candidate for the Conservative leadership has weighed in in favour of the project. In addition, the proposal would offer the possibility for those who favoured Brexit in the UK to prove that economic ties can be built outside of the Brussels bureaucracy.
Nevertheless, those who see CANZUK as an opportunity should learn the lessons of the European Union. This is particularly true when the suggestion includes some kind of free movement. The moral of the EU story can be summed up as follows: free movement is not advisable or sustainable when no common border exists around the area of movement. Despite nominally coordinated regulations for the Schengen Area, the extent of the refugee crisis has seen states reimpose more stringent national border controls.
The comparison to the EU is admitted by the advocates of the CANZUK idea. The executive director of CANZUK International states the following:
What we’re advocating is not something out of the ordinary. This is something that has been done within the European Union, between virtually 30 countries with a population of 500 million citizens, who have the right to live and work freely between each other, and its also been done between Australia and New Zealand with the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement … so what we’re proposing with 4 Commonwealth countries, who have very close Commonwealth ties, is not something completely “out there”.
Tensions and disparities in enforcement are inevitable when implementation is being done by a number of states which are both de jure and de facto sovereign in how regulations are imposed. Canada becomes subject to British immigration policy, Britain to Australia, and so on. Moreover, the organizations of entrenched neoliberalism remain in place despite the nationalist wave which continues to sweep the world; as such, we can expect to see a continuation of pressure on participants to cede sovereignty to the institutions of globalism and financial power.
Thus, it seems reasonable to assume the following for a CANZUK trade and migration area: following the establishment of the treaty, the bureaucracy created to administer it would find its interests best served by securing the favour and backing of the globalist powers. Thus, participating countries would find themselves increasingly pressured to cede more security, legal, and migration powers to the new common governing authority.
At the same time, the CANZUK free trade area would likely see pressure to itself sign agreements with other countries and trade areas, much like those the EU has pursued with CETA and similar agreements. In the case of renewed migration pressures when the next crisis hits, countries would be pressured to “share the burden”. Thus, the lessons which we might now learn in observing the EU from afar would be received much more directly.
Forging closer ties among the CANZUK nations as privileged partners in matters of trade and migration is desirable. Yet this must be done as part of a broader project of restoring a cohesive and resilient civilizational bulwark. The only way to effectively enforce a free movement area would be a unified sovereign power which administers all participant territories.
Despite the hopes of some Anglophiles, such an entity would – at present – be unlikely to take the form of a reborn, responsible, and civilizationally-minded Imperial Crown.