Continental drift

Isobel Morrison describes a French monument commemorating the D-day invasion of 1944 (Letters, 21 June).

She quotes Churchill’s paraphrased words from the stone memorial: “Men will be proud to say I am a European. We hope to see a Europe where men of every country will think as much of being European as of belonging to their native land.”

She does not say that the native land should be in a Europe run by unaccountable bureaucrats, like the EU. Tellingly, she continues, “We hope that wherever they are on the European continent they will truly feel, ‘here I am at home’.” Indeed, Churchill advocated a United States of Europe very shortly after the last war and, I firmly believe, thought it a good idea.

After all, the European continent has been the cause of all the world wars, whether or not they are characterised as such. The wars between Great Britain and Spain and France, let alone Germany, have all had a global perspective and it has been Great Britain’s bad luck to have to stop those nations from crushing the Continent under their heels.

It is a good thing for the repetitively warring nations of the Continent to be reigned in and kept from fighting each other and the EU seems to be succeeding at that.

However, as for Great Britain, Churchill said: “If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must

always choose the open sea.” And so it is.

ANDREW HN GRAY Craiglea Drive, Edinburgh