Although it would no doubt be treated with contempt by the Remainers I have just been reading Douglas Bader's account of the Battle of Britain. Apart from the obvious courage of the participants what comes across most strongly is the belief in our country, and of the unconquerable spirit of the British people, who never doubted that, however dark things seemed, we would prevail. When one thinks of those who were the heroes of Britain in those days one thinks of Bader himself, a man who could have spent his life disabled, but instead become a Group Captain, shot down over twenty enemy aeroplanes, led the Tangmere Wing during the Battle of Britain and the victory flypast over London. Another great airman was Wing Commander Guy Gibson who, with his comrades, destroyed the dams of Western Germany. The Army boasted Monty, a great strategist, who inspired his men to drive the Germans from North Africa through Sicily and Italy until final victory, while of course the greatest Briton who ever lived, Winston Churchill, as he said "provided the roar" while the British people had the lion's heart.
What a contrast to today. We still have brave men and women in the forces but youngsters' heroes seem to be vacuous pop singers and internet bloggers, or else talented but hardly heroic footballers. There are obscenely overpaid CEOs who have no confidence that British workers can match anyone found abroad, preferring to treat the people with contempt, clearly anxious to use lowly paid foreign workers, rather than investing in training at home, in order that there might be more funds available to pay their annual inflated bonuses. Worst are the pusillanimous politicians, who are desperate to hide behind the bureaucrats of the EU, instead of taking the responsibility of governing this country, while ensuring that the potentially enhanced career structure within the institutions of that organisation remains available to them, regardless of the wishes of their constituents. These people have no belief in Britain, put their love of money before anything else, are betraying our democracy and destroying the country which Bader and his comrades saved. They are beneath contempt.
The real divide over Brexit is between those who put money before all else, and those whose priorities are freedom, democracy and national sovereignty. The Remain supporting media, particularly the BBC, are obsessed with imaginary threats to our prosperity, and are willing to sell their birthright for a mess of pottage, yet history shows that the British nation does not act in that way. If our concern had only been financial we would never have gone to war with Germany in 1914, which cost us at least a third of the wealth accumulated during the 19th century, but would have remained aloof behind the Grand Fleet and the Empire, while in the 1930s we could have avoided the bankruptcy of the post war period by ignoring morality, and leaving Europe to Hitler's tender mercies. Those who today wish to bend the knee to Brussels are the spiritual heirs of Chamberlain's appeasers, and have clearly learnt nothing from the lessons of the past. To paraphrase President Clinton “It's democracy, stupid”.
Although we are well aware these professional politicians are trained to place expediency before honesty I do really wonder how the MPs now working so assiduously to overturn Brexit can justify their actions to themselves. They put me in mind of Peter Sarstedt's lyrics “But where do you go to my lovely, When you're alone in your bed?, Won't you tell me the thoughts that surround you?, I want to look inside your head”. Most are far from lovely but they must know in their hearts that an overwhelming vote in Parliament promised the result of the referendum would be honoured, that the candidates for the Conservative and Labour parties at the 2017 General Election stood on a manifesto which explicitly promised to implement Brexit, and that the date for Article 50 was again passed by a large majority in the Commons. Yet now here they are blatantly reneging on these undertakings, and trying to justify doing so with specious arguments we all know are false. If we could look inside their heads it would be instructive to know whether they are indulging in Orwellian doublethink, having convinced themselves that they are not breaking solemn promises, or whether they are so arrogant that they will lie and put their own self interest ahead of the will of the people.
In either case is it any surprise that our democracy is in great peril for, as the proverb attributed to Erasmus says “A fish rots from the head down”. Although in reality dead fish do not do so, there is no doubt that our so called leaders are corrupting the body politic by their duplicitous behaviour. They should be ashamed of themselves.
All the time the new version of “Project Fear” continues. Recently we had a ludicrous story from newspapers such as The Times to the effect that arrangements are being made to ensure the safety of the Royal family in the event of riots due to a No-Deal Brexit. One would think the riots would be more likely if the political class succeed in stopping a clean Brexit, but in reality neither scenario is likely. Obviously The Times has reverted to the position it took back in the thirties, when it applauded appeasers.
The announcement by the car company Nissan that they would not now build a new model in Sunderland has been seized upon by the BBC and others to claim that this is a disaster directly attributable to Brexit, despite the fact that the company itself denies this, stating that problems with selling diesel cars, and general lack of demand, are the real causes. Similarly the action of that convinced Brexiteer James Dyson in moving some production abroad are being described as due to Brexit, something vehemently denied by the man himself.
Retailers such as Sainsbury's, Asda and McDonald's are among those claiming that a No-deal Brexit threatens the UK's food security, leading to higher prices and empty shelves in the short-term, more nonsense from self interested CEOs. As has been pointed out before we managed very well before joining the European project, and we will manage perfectly well when we leave. Any examination of the contents of one's refrigerator will confirm that much comes from outside Europe, and our own farmers can supply things in season. For instance we do not need strawberries in January, and certainly not at the cost of our right to control our own affairs. Despite the Mayor of Calais reaffirming that there will not be a problem with the port, Remainers continue to claim that everything will seize up without a deal.
One could go on and on knocking down these Aunt Sallies, but fortunately the common-sense of the British people is ensuring that the proponents of “Project Fear“ are just making themselves a laughing stock. We don't believe them, any more than we believed that the world would end when we left the ERM, or failed to join the Euro. Indeed the results of those decisions were beneficial not malign.
Of course what is no laughing matter is the continued effort of Mrs May and her fellow appeasers to achieve a Brexit in name only. If they succeed they will, in the words attributed, perhaps apocryphally, to Air Chief Marshal Dowding, as he watched the bombing of London in 1940, that, as it says in the Bible, “they are sowing the wind, and will reap the whirlwind”. The later destruction of Germany's cities proved the truth of this.
As I write we have been made aware of the comments made by Tusk in Ireland, condemning true Brexiteers to a special place in hell. This is the last straw for those of us who dared to opt for democracy over bureaucratic dictatorship, and have been attacked as unintelligent ignoramuses ever since. How dare this arrogant, unelected apparatchik deride those democrats who chose to express contrary views to his? It proves how right we are to leave this rotten organisation. Perhaps he might like to remember that we went to war for his native Poland in 1939.
Should those MPs who seek to undermine our democracy succeed they should reflect on what might happen as the people react to their betrayal. In 1984 Orwell says of the vast majority of the population “the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They need only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it.” In a country such as ours without a totalitarian dictatorship, at least for the moment, it should be easy to rid ourselves of these quislings if we wish.