Never was so much embarrassment caused to so many by so few
Can a whole nation be humiliated? If it can, then this must be what it feels like. Except for the minority of hard-line Remainers, who are probably cheering, we must all feel a mixture of disbelief, anger and embarrassment.
But directed against whom? The people of this country have done nothing that deserves humiliation. Only that minority who seem to revel in national declinism can think that. Most people voted for the eminently rational course of leaving a failing EU.
It is the Government and Parliament, intimidated by pro-eu lobbies and much of the media, who have brought about the humiliating spectacle of a Prime Minister grovelling to our “partners”. Mrs May has been humiliated more than any of her predecessors that I can think of. But the country and its people? Only through being tarnished by its Government’s lamentable failure.
Is this the worst it can be? Far from it. In the 1956 Suez crisis, Sir Anthony Eden, the prime minister, had secretly plotted with the French and the Israelis to launch an illegal invasion of Egypt and then backed down when the US threatened to collapse the pound. That humiliation of a prime minister was compounded by blood unjustly spilt and the country was rightly shamed.
When, in 1976, with inflation out of control and sterling collapsing, we had to ask the IMF for the largest loan ever given to a developed country, that was a genuine national humiliation. We, as a people, seemed hopeless, unable either to govern ourselves or to earn our living. That humiliation went far beyond Westminster.
Go back further, to the Thirties. The Munich surrender to Hitler was a collective act of fear, but it was not Britain’s alone, and for all his shortcomings, Neville Chamberlain was sincerely trying to stave off a global catastrophe.
To find further humiliations we have to go way back. We suffered shocking military defeats during the age of Empire: against the Boers, the Zulus, the Afghans, the Sudanese. In all these cases, small bodies of troops were cut off far from help. Perhaps tragedies more than humiliations.
We often think of the loss of the American colonies as a humiliation, and the prime minister of the time, Lord North, is often dubbed “the worst”. But this followed a world war of Britain alone against the French, Spanish, Dutch and Americans, and the country had never been really wholehearted in fighting anyway.
Today’s humiliation is different from any of these. It is less tragic, less important, less necessary, less widely shared. There is a frivolity and stupidity about the present situation that makes it humiliating in a manner perhaps unique in our history: this is black comedy, not drama. Had our rulers shown a modicum of honesty, consistency, judgment and courage, we would not be where we are today.
Never was so much embarrassment caused to so many by so few. But the humiliation is theirs, not ours.