We could be in for the long haul with Brexit
LIKE most people, I’m fed up with Brexit. I tried to put it into historical context and realised it has been going on as long as the Great War. We won that war, but the outcome was not exactly great.
The men who fought did not come home to a Land Fit For Heroes as promised by Prime Minister David Lloyd George, but then, when do politicians ever keep their promises?
They returned to the same old routine of work, poverty and survival that led to the General Strike of 1926, which only lasted nine days but was declared a glorious failure.
It was followed by the rise of populist dictators across Europe such as Franco, Mussolini and Hitler, although Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists got short shrift, and we tumbled into another world war.
We won that one too, and the following decade Harold MacMillan said we had never had it so good.
Well, Coronation Street and The Beatles were just around the corner, promoting enough social change to make us feel we finally had destiny in our own hands, and then we went and won the World Cup in 1966.
By heck, Harold hadn’t been wrong.
Standing shoulder to shoulder with France and Belgium and much of Europe against the Fascist hordes had almost made us European but Charles de Gaulle wouldn’t let us join the EEC because he suspected we held our special relationship with America in higher esteem.
To be fair, we still go on about it, although its application only seems to be effective when it is to America’s advantage.
De Gaulle died in 1970 and we
‘I’m just hoping it doesn’t go on for as long as the 100 Year War which, in fact, lasted
116 years’ were admitted three years later. Happy days.
Until in 2013 David Cameron attempted to nullify the threat of UKIP by promising a referendum if he won the next election. He won and called the referendum safe in the belief the Leavers would lose.
Lloyd George should take note. This was one of the few times a politician kept a promise. With consequences.
The Brexit War has coincided with the rise of populist politicians around the world using rhetoric to divide rather than unite at a time when we face problems of environmental survival and humanitarian need. Is this déjà vu or history repeating itself?
The tsunami of misinformation, exaggeration and being economical with the truth heralded by the referendum has dominated our lives ever since. For as long as the First World War.
And still it goes on at Westminster with, it seems, the national interest subservient to personal and political ambition in a game of bluff, counter move and rhetoric.
I’m just hoping it doesn’t go on for as long as the 100 Year War which, in fact, lasted 116 years.
Which would mean we might expect a conclusion about 2121.