Pomp and arrogance — The Last Night Of Remain

GEORGE ORWELL got it right in his wonderful essay England Your England, published during World War II at the height of the Blitz. While no fan of John Bull jingoism, he reserved his special contempt for those he termed the ‘Europeanised intelligentsia’.

In 1941, he wrote: ‘England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In Left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings.

‘It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during God Save The King than of stealing from a poor box.’

The snobbery Orwell describes perfectly reached its nadir during the EU referendum campaign. The Remainers revelled in their soi-disant intellectual superiority and couldn’t disguise their disgust at the Great Unwashed who wanted to restore Britain’s independence.

And they’re still at it, two months after the vote produced a convincing majority in favour of leaving the EU.

They’ve been bitching and grizzling ever since, complaining that the 17.4 million people who voted for Brexit are all knuckle-scraping racists, too stupid to know what they were doing. Their latest target is the Last Night Of The Proms, one of the few occasions when the British are allowed to celebrate their heritage and identity.

Orwell didn’t have much time for boastful flag waving — what he called the ‘Rule Britannia stuff’, which he associated primarily with the ruling class. But he would certainly have recognised the motives of those self-regarding Remainers who are trying to appropriate the Last Night for their own elitist political ends.

Take, for example, Sir Nicholas Kenyon, doyen of the arts establishment, former head of BBC Radio 3, director of the Proms from 1996 to 2007 and now director of the Barbican Centre — the stage from which Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch berated theatregoers nightly about Britain’s failure to do enough for migrants.

Writing in The Guardian (where else?), Kenyon says: ‘ There may be a sense of foreboding that this most British of occasions might be hijacked to celebrate the triumph of Little England, to reinforce the message of a land of hope and glory in which Britons never shall be slaves — to the EU or anyone else. How wrong that would be.’ Calm down, dear. It’s only a concert. Kenyon goes on, and on: ‘ This would be to radically misread the forces that gave birth to the music of the Last Night celebrations, to the concept of the Proms and to the entire tradition of adventurous British music.

‘The inspiration our native music has derived from continental Europe and beyond has been deep and lasting.’

And your point is?

THE Promenade Concerts are a summer-long celebration of music from all over the world. Half the programme for the Last Night even features foreign composers. When most people think of the Last Night, it’s the closing half, televised on BBC1 — which features Land Of Hope And Glory, a medley of British sea shanties, Jerusalem, Rule Britannia!, Auld Lang Syne and the National Anthem.

The English, in particular, wear their patriotism lightly. The finale of the Last Night is one of the few harmless occasions in the year when we can bathe in a warm glow of nostalgia and national pride for an hour — until the show’s over and is followed immediately by the BBC News coming live from the Med, where people are drowning AND IT’S ALL OUR FAULT!

Actually, if anyone has been hijacking the Proms for years, it’s the Guardianistas, Orwell’s ‘Europeanised intellectuals’. They’re even trying to hijack it tomorrow night.

An anti-Brexit group has been raising money on the internet and is planning to hand out 5,000 EU flags at the Albert Hall, hoping that Last- Nighters will wave them during Land Of Hope And Glory and Rule Britannia!

There’s nothing new in this. The organisers have been distributing EU flags for at least the past 15 years, part of the regulation bunting given to the Promenaders in the name of making the event more ‘inclusive’.

The politicisation of the Proms began in earnest during the Gulf War in 1990, when one Left-wing conductor threatened to drop traditional patriotic songs altogether.

Last year, I spotted a fashionable ‘Refugees Welcome’ banner draped from one of the balconies.

Then, towards the end of the evening, the female conductor, Marin Alsop, used her speech to drone on about women’s rights and the need to tackle ‘ gender, racial, economic and ethnic inequality’.

Get over yourself, love. It’s the Albert Hall, not the Labour Party conference. Funny how the heavily subsidised grandees of the arts establishment can barely contain their distaste for tradition, patriotism and royalty — or the hard-pressed taxpayers who pay their wages — yet somehow can’t resist the platform the Proms provides and are more than happy to accept the baubles which come as part of the package. Isn’t that right, ‘Sir’ Nicholas? For what it’s worth, I love the Proms, even if I can live without some of the more avant garde offerings. The BBC presents the whole thing brilliantly. It’s an essential part of what the licence fee is for. Proper public service broadcasting.

But can you imagine what this great festival of music would be like if the Guardianistas and Remainers had their way?

Cue presenter Katie Derham . . . ‘WELCOME to the Last Night Of Remain, which comes from the chamber of the Berlaymont Building, in Brussels, headquarters of the European Commission.

‘Tonight’s programme is specially designed to send out a message to the world that Britain made a terrible mistake in voting to leave the EU. You’ll have a chance to correct that tonight, by pressing the red button on your remote to trigger a second referendum.

‘To prevent this evening’s proceed- ings being hijacked by Nigel Farage’s brownshirts and Little Englanders, all Union Jacks have been confiscated at the door and replaced with blue and gold EU flags.

‘In place of the usual bourgeois, fascist Promenaders, the front row is given over to Stop The City demonstrators and Black Lives Matter activists, brandishing colourful flags from around the world, including those of ISIS and Hezbollah, and placards demanding Free Ram Jam Choudary.

‘You may also notice some changes to the traditional line-up. Handel’s Water Music has been dropped at the insistence of War on Want. It was considered inappropriate and insensitive at a time when millions of people in the Third World are suffering from severe drought.

‘Sir Edward Elgar’s Pomp And Circumstance March has been replaced by Sir Edward Izzard’s recently composed March On Downing Street, a symphony in high heels and pink beret.

‘There will be no Sailor’s Hornpipe this evening. Tonight’s Fantasia Of Sea Shanties comes from the Libyan port of Benghazi and will be sung by a boatload of illegal immigrants as they embark for Lesbos.

OUR modern classics section features the Eighties’ reggae band UB40, with special guest star Jeremy ‘Jezza’ Corbyn, reprising some of their most famous social commentaries, including Red, Red Wine, written as a tribute to the European wine lake made possible by the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy.

‘ They will also perform their version of the Beatles’ ska-influenced number Ob-La-Di, Ob-LaDa, with its famous singalong line: “Desmond has a barrow in the (EU single) marketplace.”

‘We then cross live to Cologne railway station where Angela Merkel will lead the Syrian Migrants’ Male Voice Choir in a selection of songs from the popular musical comedy Lock Up Your Daughters.

‘ Our next outside broadcast comes from the Jungle at Calais, where Pink Floyd will be performing a spectacular version of their best-selling album, The Wall, while inhabitants of the camp juggle chainsaws and light bonfires in an attempt to hijack cars and lorries bound for Britain.

‘Finally, the Berlaymont Symphony Orchestra, conducted by JeanClaude Drunker — and featuring the legendary tenors Neil ‘ Welsh Windbag’ Kinnock and the bloke from the Go Compare! adverts — will close with a medley of Deutschland Uber Alles, The Marseillaise and our glorious European anthem Ode To Joy.

‘Unfortunately, in the interests of European unity, a planned reading of George Orwell’s England Your England, set to music by Sir Tim Rice, of the Brexit campaign, has been cancelled . . .’

Sir Edward Elgar has been Izzard’ replaced by Sir Edward