Trumpeter 4 Europe

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana.

Recently Mr Brendan Donnelly wrote a penetrating and trenchant article about “The Coalition and its European Policy”. In it he tells us of the sorry progress of many UK governments into self-willed isolation from the EU and the consequent UK irrelevance to the future development of the Eurozone
and the EU. As I read his article I could not but recall the French expression “Plus ça change, plus ça même chose”. I had just finished reading a book about a period of British foreign policy characterised by unwillingness to confront European realities; during which successive British governments of

Right and Left had been unwilling to make firm commitments to European friends. They tried by all means to remain as detached as possible from European “entanglements” so as to be more capable of dealing with far-flung crises around the world and in the British empire. Decades of past history

were disconcertingly similar to very recent history and present day policies. You have probably guessed that the book I had just finished prior to reading Brendan’s article was in fact about British foreign policy 1919-1939; decades infamous for the policy of appeasement. The policy of

appeasement towards the rise of Fascism in Europe was a result of a general unwillingness by governments, press and public in the UK to confront and challenge the reality of the evil coming out of European mainland politics. In recent and contemporary UK politics, media and public we see a similar

unwillingness to recognise, accept and be part of the good coming out of European mainland politics. In the inter-war period the policy of appeasement was a way for the UK to distance itself from the demolition of European civilisation: modern euro-scepticism is a way to avoid being part of the
reconstruction of European civilisation. Whereas during the 1930s feeble British foreign policy failed to sufficiently demonise and confront the evil of fascism we now have the opposite. In modern times the strident unreality of confrontational British foreign policy vis à vis Europe fails to acknowledge

the good coming out the EU; an EU that is systematically demonised by most of the British press. This Manichean alternation in UK evasions of European existential political realities finds its most recent expression in UK coalition government foreign policy: which is a sort of softly-softly euro-

scepticism. It continues a long tradition. For about 30 years successive UK governments, Conservative, Labour and now Coalition, along with the British press, have appeased or openly supported the euro-sceptics. They have pandered to the obsolete, atavistic obsessions and distortions of those who want a weak, fractured, incoherent Europe of backward-looking, squabbling nation-states, the most populous of which would be no more than a middling province of China. Thereby euro-scepticism has gone from strength to strength and the UK has increasingly become an irrelevance to the great

experiment of reconstructing European civilisation on an entirely new basis. Make no mistake about it; rampant euro-scepticism and UKIP policies are our modern UK equivalent of the inter-war policy of appeasement. Both appeasement and euro-scepticism were and are ways of denying existential

political realities; and ways for the UK not to come to grips with the problems of the evolution of European civilisation. This persistent evasion of reality in UK foreign policy with Europe (accompanied by delusions of power east of Suez) is rather depressing. But I take heart from the life and words of a
man who believed in facing European realities and believed in the UK being a constructive part of European civilisation. Mr Winston Churchill, a founder of the European Movement, spoke out eloquently and forcefully against the policy of appeasement. He was reviled in his time for facing European

realities and speaking the truth about them. How little matters have changed. Now it is pro-Europeans who are the voices crying in the wilderness against unrealistic British beliefs about Europe. I think Mr Donnelly is right conclude that there is a need for the European Movement to be a strong,

vigorous, clear voice in favour of whole-hearted UK engagement in the EU enterprise of civilisation. In so doing we shall not only prove ourselves true heirs to an honourable and necessary tradition of public truth telling. We shall also serve the future of our countries and of European civilisation, of which the UK is a part and not apart. 22.8.2010
Kevin Hannon  of The Midlands European Movement