There’s a lot of
lobbying going on within the hopelessly divided UK Government at present, with
various cabinet ministers engaged in fairly public dissent about a whole range
of issues, not simply Brexit. One of the
issues concerns the amount of money being spent on the armed forces, with military
chiefs demanding more money. According
to the Sunday
Times (paywall), they are also trying to enlist the support of the
royal family for their campaign to increase spending.
What particularly
struck me was the argument of one unnamed ‘senior source’ who said that “The prime minister needs to recognise that
our standing on the international stage is linked to our national identity,
which is linked to our strong defence”.
This reinforces a point which I’ve made before on this blog – for Anglo-British
nationalists, the armed forces and the glorious (as they seem to see them)
victories of the past are a key – perhaps the single most important – element
in their whole definition of their own identity. They’re not the only nation in the world to
take an excessive degree of pride in the armed forces and their exploits, but
how many other nations actually define themselves in those terms?
It helps to
explain why there is such a huge gulf in understanding between the UK and the
rest of the EU about the purpose and objective of the EU. Whilst most European countries regard the
wars which have ravaged the continent in the past as unfortunate events which
must never be repeated, and therefore want to lock themselves together to
prevent any such repeat, the Anglo-British nationalists see those same wars as
part of the UK’s past triumphs and want to retain an independent capacity to
fight such wars again.
But what sort of
national identity is it that depends so heavily on the ability to wage war
against its neighbours, and prefers to dwell on the outcome of past wars and
prepare for future ones than work with others for a peaceful future? This is truly the sign of a national identity
which has lost its way in the world.
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