The UK must join PESCO

Fully joining PESCO would be the responsible and patriotic decision for the UK government. 

What is PESCO? The Permanent Structured Cooperation is the EU's latest initiative for coordinating military defence between member states. It has been commonly reported as a Franco-German initiative but also had the early support of many other states such as the Czech Republic or Austria. At this point, 23 EU states have signed up to a joint proposal outlining how PESCO would work.

Among the key pillars of the agreement are making units available for EU operations, a commitment to increased military spending, opening up military transport across EU borders, creating a more coherent policy for stabilising North Africa (an area where NATO has little to no involvement) and strengthening the defence industry. 

These are key, practical measures that are necessary to shore up European defence and to ensure the security of all citizens, far more effectively than a patchwork of different defence systems all acting independently ever could. It stands in stark contrast to the actions of the UK government, whose current position is to keep military cooperation to the bare minimum, all the while cutting spending and resources given to Britain's conventional armed forces in order to keep up the high levels of spending on relics like Trident. 

An obsession with strict independence and a global nuclear capacity will inevitably lead in one direction: the UK left holding onto threadbare alliances, caught between military superpowers and diverting ever more billions to a nuclear deterrent while being unable to even patrol the shoreline. 

A government has a duty of care to its citizens. By keeping the UK isolated from deeper European military integration, the government is ignoring that duty of care. Of course, there is the issue that, if the UK leaves the EU, it will not have as big a role in PESCO or in decision making as it could, but this is simply one more argument against Brexit and in no way defends the argument against European states doing more together on defence. If the government will not take the best course of action, that does not mean it should drop down to the worst course of action instead. 

The bottom line is this: by signing up to greater military integration, UK citizens will be safer. For any patriotic, responsible government, the course of action is clear.