In
getting himself sacked for failing to change his mind over the UK’s membership
of the EU, Lord Heseltine somehow managed to get himself projected as a man of
principle whilst all around him in the Tory party have lost all theirs. It turns out, though,
that his views aren’t so very different after all. For years, the more rabid
Brexiteers have been telling us that the EU was all a plot to enable the
Germans to control Europe without resorting to force, and that we should leave
to avoid falling under their domination.
From his latest pronunciation, it seems that Heseltine broadly agrees
with the diagnosis, but feels that the best way to stop German domination is to
remain within. This is not some great
disagreement of principle; it is a shared mindset in which the only difference
is about the best way of achieving the desired end.
Perhaps
it’s a generational thing; for Heseltine’s generation, the second world war was
a defining period in history. And it’s
easy to see how such a horrific catastrophe for mankind in general and Europe
in particular would leave a scar and shape people’s views for the rest of their
lives. But this obsession with ‘the war’
and the competition and rivalry which gave rise to it is still poisoning our
relationship with the other countries of Europe 70 years after the event. And it completely fails to recognise that one
of the main objectives of those setting up the precursors of today’s EU was to
replace that rivalry and competition with co-operation and unity of purpose; to
ensure that the European family of nations would never again tear the continent
apart as it did twice in the first half of the twentieth century.
It’s
not that the rest of Europe is simply trying to forget the events of the past,
it’s more like most of Europe has learned one lesson from the first half of the
twentieth century, and one offshore state has either failed to learn it, or has
learnt something completely different.
The majority have concluded that peace can best be maintained through
pooling, sharing and co-operating, whilst the outlier continues to regard everyone
else as a potential enemy, to be contained and controlled, and above all kept
at a distance. The ‘divide and conquer’
mindset lingers on long after it has ceased to be relevant or useful, and is
now becoming a destructive force.
One
of the clear outcomes of the referendum last June was the difference in voting
patterns between young and old – the younger electors were overwhelmingly
in favour of remaining in the EU whilst it was the older age groups who voted
to leave. There is at least the hope
that most of the younger generation are taking a very different view of our
relationship with the rest of Europe than most of those born before, during, or
in the immediate aftermath of the war.
Not for nothing will the Brexiteers continue to insist that we all fall
in line and that there should be no second chance. This could well be their last opportunity to
impose their mindset on the rest of us; a last desperate attempt to return to
the certainties of their past. All the
more reason to resist them.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment