There are alive today members of the generation born within a few years of the ceasefire on the western front. The British culture that emerged in those interwar years evolved from the economic and social struggles which were the legacy of the first world war. In the early years of the second world war, that generation responded with a warm welcome to refugees from persecution in Europe. Those early years of war meant that every man, woman and child living in towns and cities had to face the daily threat of a violent death, while the rationing of food, energy and materials reflected equality and mutual help throughout the country. Life was a struggle – but even in adversity, democracy was evident.
Britain was defending human rights that had been built up over centuries, costing the lives of many thousands on the way. This democratic culture has its genesis in Britain; it is an inheritance founded in the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. It did not arise from the Magna Carta in 1215 and its derivatives; they were the barons’ charters. Nor did it have its roots in ancient Greece, for its philosophers were then unknown and the city states were slave societies.
Slowly it became established as the desired political system by peoples everywhere. It was the spirit that maintained Britain in its darkest years of the second world war. It was, too, the spirit that founded not only the welfare state in the depths of that war, but afterwards advanced education and planning, and created national parks; new towns; the people’s ownership of the railways, energy and the NHS – all of which have now been lost to corporate finance or are threatened by a decision arising from a national poll.
This, the June 2016 referendum, was fought by those who campaigned to leave the European Union largely on the basis of lies, falsehoods and hatreds – a campaign during which a member of parliament was gunned down in the street. When the bill to trigger the leaving process was discussed in parliament earlier this month, MPs who voted to remain in the EU contrarily supported it. Members of parliament are repeating the mantra that they “respect the will of the people”; but how can they respect a decision reached by deception, false information and hate?
In any case, they are not delegates for their constituents, they are appointed as representatives to parliament to arrive at the best decisions for the safety and prosperity of all the citizens of their country. They note the concerns of their constituents, but the security and democratic future of Britain are their primary duties. The parliament that we have today is failing in both foresight and hindsight; it is working blindly on one of the greatest calamities that has faced Britain since the 1930s, moving unopposed without understanding to an insecure and depressed future.
This is a denial of the steady progress that has been made in Europe since 1945. The outcome of those war years was the organisation of a continent of nation-states into a mutually supporting union, whereby the member nations willingly gave up those elements that had led to conflict for the benefits of security, common standards, trading, legal and human rights, transport and movement networks, aid for depressed industries and post-industrial areas. As a result it has been the only stable, multi-nation community on earth. It is the future for society, as the world of nation-states is coming to an end – as did the city-states of old. It is an example that other world regions will be likely to follow when it is understood that mutuality does not subtract from member states their inheritance as nations, their culture, language and parliaments or assemblies.
My standards of honour were set with my comrades in those turbulent interwar and war years – for six years I flew in the battle zones of three enemy nations. The men and women of my generation who struggled for this democratic land would be horrified, as am I, at the way their sacrifices have been dishonoured; at how society has become so highly unequal, with increased child poverty, a reliance on food banks, a great shortage of housing and increasing homelessness, the withdrawal of benefits for the young and disabled, zero-hours employment and dozens of other undemocratic political changes. The acceptance of Brexit means the government will take this great country into voluntary liquidation, expose us to economic and security challenges, plummeting standards for the poor and enhanced living for the rich.
One likely result is that two of the four assemblies that make up the United Kingdom, Scotland and Northern Ireland, will seek to leave in order to retain individual membership of the EU. What will remain will be a broken kingdom, prone to the unwelcoming powers of predatory forces elsewhere.
Brexit is a failure before it has started. The spirit that Britain found to defend the pass in the second world war needs now to be mustered to join the world of the progressive 21st century.
