The ongoing Brexit fiasco owes much to the government's 'Red Lines', these are a series of defensive positions that must never be abandoned. Hitler had the same idea at Stalingrad.
It would have been easier to stay in the single market and the customs union, that way there would be no problem with the Irish border, but that, we are told, would have stopped us from signing lucrative trade deals with up to forty countries. We are not allowed to know which countries are waiting to trade with us. We produce high-tech cars and machine tools for the leading industrial nations but I suppose it's possible that some impoverished African dictatorship is desperate to buy our aerospace equipment and sell us their mangos. Nobody really believes in this propaganda. We already trade with the world through the EU.
Another reason is that membership of the customs union would put us under the jurisdiction of the European Court. The problem seems to be that the ECJ is staffed by foreigners, but an inspection of our own noble judges would reveal almost as many foreign-looking faces. We have no trouble submitting to the WTO, despite the fact, that its judges found against us in the Great Cod War with Iceland. We may end up as partners of Iceland in the European Free Trade Area. This is part of the European project reserved for those nations that recently gained independence, Norway from Sweden in 1905, and Iceland from Denmark in 1944.
But whatever happens, the peoples of Europe will ultimately be united in a federal union. Those who share the blood and culture of Europe will not be divided by petty nationalism.
Hugh Tudor
Throughout history, good men have been given bad orders by politicians. One such man was Henry Tudor, a brave and loyal soldier who led the infamous Black and Tans during the Irish War of Independence. The following letter from PJ Lewis appeared in the Daily Mail in September 2015).
At a Conference of Ministers in May 1920, the Secretary of State for War (Winston Churchill) undertook to submit to the Cabinet a scheme for raising a special emergency gendarmerie which would become a branch of the Royal Irish Constabulary.
The conference also concluded that a special officer with suitable qualifications and experience should be appointed to supervise the entire organisation of the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police. On Churchill's recommendation, Major General Henry Hugh Tudor (1871-1965) was appointed 'police adviser' to the Irish government.
Tudor was an artilleryman, a hardened veteran of the South African War and World War 1, having served on the Western Front from 1914 through to the Armistice. He was on good terms with Churchill, having first met him in Bangalore in 1895.
Tudor styled himself Chief of Police and militarised the police forces. Like Churchill, Tudor handed out police posts to military friends and colleagues - for example, Brigadier-General Ormond Winter, whom he knew from India, became Deputy Police Adviser and Head of Intelligence.
The beleaguered RIC was reinforced with British ex-soldiers and sailors, the notorious 'Black and Tans'. With hindsight, these men traumatised and desensitised by years in the trenches and embittered by returning to a jobless existence in Britain were unsuitable for hunting down the IRA.
The nickname Black and Tans arose from the colours of the improvised uniforms they initially wore - British Army khaki and rifleman's green with RIC uniform parts.
The Auxiliary Division was commanded by experienced colonial warriors Brigadiers General FF Crozier and EA Wood. Tudor helped rebuild the RIC's numbers and morale but failed to maintain discipline. When police and auxiliaries were killed in ambushes or attacks, their comrades often carried out reprisals on Irish communities.
His attitude was summed up in a 1920 memorandum in which he advised his men to maintain 'the highest discipline' while reassuring them they would have 'the fullest support in the most drastic action against that band of assassins, the so-called IRA'.
Tudor remained Chief Of Police until his forces had been demobilised and the RIC was disbanded. By May 1922, Churchill was Secretary of State for the Colonies and found him a new post in the troubled Palestine Mandate, where he became Director of Public Safety, with a temporary rank of Air Vice Marshal.
In 1924 he retired from his position as Palestine's Director of Public Safety and from the Army and emigrated to Newfoundland, where he lived until his death in 1965.
Another Fifty Years
Richard Edmond's (pictured) call for nationalist unity prompted me to visit the National Front website. I found myself in general agreement wiith most of their policies, but some of them need reviewing. Financial services must be regulated, but the Stock Exchange generates money for pension funds and, however much we hate the IRA, Northern Ireland must stay within the Good Friday Agreement. Europe, of course, remains the great stumbling block.
The NF was founded in 1967 as an amalgamation of John Bean's BNP and the Empire Loyalists. The BNP, favoured a Confederation of European States but the dominant Empire Loyalists were committed to a revived Commonwealth. They also threw out JB's progressive labour policies. The rest, as they say, is history.
Like all the political parties, the NF will have to update its post Brexit policies. If we really leave in March they will have to drop half of their manifesto and concentrate on immigration. But if we stay in the single market and the customs union they could waste another fifty years claiming that someone has stolen our Brexit.
This is because they are stuck in the past. The Dominions used to send us raw materials and we sent them cars and manufactured goods in return. But this system broke down in the Sixties when China and Japan placed massive orders with Canada and Australia for coal and iron ore. A revived Commonwealth is not going to happen. We will continue to trade with our neighbours and some sort of customs union is inevitable. We will probably join the European Free Trade Area with Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. This could be the basis of a European Confederation as advocated by the AFD in Germany.
If and when we leave the EU, there is a danger that non-Europeans will flood in to replace the Poles and other European workers. In fact, this is already happening. Only two countries in the world have taken practical steps to boost their declining birth rates; South Korea and Norway pay generous family allowances and make housing available, but most states depend on immigration to ensure a supply of labour. We will need a well-organised political party to counter this short-sighted policy.
But it's no good living in the past. There will not be a revived Commonwealth because a post-industrial Britain cannot buy Australian coal and iron ore. The world has moved on. We are a leading high-tech manufacturer and we are more than capable of defending ourselves but we are not a super-power, and we do ourselves no favours by pretending to be what we are not.
Perspective
People arrive at their opinions for the strangest reasons. I know an old campaigner from the Sixties who sides with the Ukrainians against the Russians because "they fought for the Fuhrer." In fact, all factions of the Ukrainian bloodbath were guilty of war crimes. Apart from the armies of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, there were Red Partisans and Ukrainian separatists, all of which engaged in mass murder.
Many of the great figures from the Sixties, who were reviled by the far-right, were only messengers. When Harold Macmillan said that the "wind of change is blowing through Africa" he was only telling the truth. The wind did blow and one by one the European colonies were abandoned. And it was the same with JF Kennedy. The Civil Rights Movement in the US was inevitable once slavery was abolished. It took another hundred years but it was bound to happen; JFK was only an observer.
By studying history and economics we know that tribes become nations and nations become mighty empires. We also know that the world is driven by technology and the best-educated nations enjoy the highest standards of living. Those who are ignorant of history rely on conspiracy theories to explain what makes the world go round.
Gerard Batten, the leader of UKIP, wants Britain to quit the EU and join the World Trade Organisation. The UKIP manifesto states: "Britain's international standing will be enhanced by leaving the EU as it will be able to act independently, whilst retaining its membership of the UN Security Council, the World Trade Organisation, the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, and over 100 other international organisations of which we are a member." This is opposed to the views of AK Chesterton (pictured) who hated Bernard Baruch and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which was the forerunner of the WTO. He said of it: "The Money Power intends that no nation shall be sovereign, that it alone shall exercise sovereign power on earth. The distance it has already travelled towards the fulfilment of its aims is terrifying." (The New Unhappy Lords)
The European Union is a voluntary association of sovereign states bound together by treaty. But to the Brexiteers, it's an undemocratic superstate bent on the destruction of everything British. In a similar way, Gerard Batten sees the WTO as an honest broker, but AK Chesterton saw it as an agent of the Money Power, It's all a matter of perspective.
British Independence
Jaguar Land Rover are laying off thousands of British workers because the Chinese are buying fewer cars. So much for the 'independence' trumpeted by the Brexiteers. We are, and we will remain, part of the global capitalist system. We can't control the price of oil or rising property prices in China. That's why we sought the protection of the EU.
One of the major arguments of the Brexiteers was that the EU undermined our sovereignty, but they never turned their attention to our defence arrangements. Britain boasts an 'independent nuclear deterrent' in the form of atomic warheads mounted on Trident missiles carried by nuclear-powered submarines.
We don't own the missiles, they are 'made available' by the United States under the terms of the Bahama Treaty of Dec 1962, signed by American President JF Kennedy and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.
The situation is further complicated by our commitment to the Anglo-French Naval Agreement of 2010, signed by British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Under this agreement, we share nuclear technology with France and co-operate with them on defence and security.
The fact is that our nuclear weapons, and our entire defence forces, are under NATO Command.
"In practice, the Trident missiles for both US and UK submarines are held and serviced at King's Bay Georgia; the UK does not own any particular missile. Thus, the British independent deterrent is arguably British and arguably independent. That it is neither British or independent is equally arguable." (Prof Norman Dombey, Financial Times, Oct 2011).
President Trump once threatened to withdraw his support for NATO. It's impossible to say what he will do because he says one thing and does another. But whatever happens we will continue to be part of a European defence pact, and our foreign policy will be geared to America. Those who think we could take on China or Russia on our own are deluded.
The Falklands War was a one-off. It was a recognised British territory invaded by a foreign power. At that time, we had armed forces capable of rapid response, a healthy war chest, and a neutral American ally. We also had Margaret Thatcher, a prime minister who believed in what she was doing. Such a combination of events is not likely to happen again.
The Railways
Benito Mussolini is remembered as the man who made the trains run on time, but during the Second World War, his railways, together with those of France, and Germany were so badly damaged that they were forced to rebuild them. Our system was badly knocked about but we were able to keep it going. When our fellow Europeans were building modern electric railways we were still using steam, and when the last steam locomotive puffed its last we turned to diesel. As a result, we are still trying to electrify the Great Western Railway.
Our railways were built and run by private enterprise but none of the companies was profitable and the government was forced to take over in 1948. They rationalised the system under Dr Beeching in the Sixties, and Margaret Thatcher gave the entire network to her capitalist friends in 1994. It is now divided into separate franchises and massively subsidized by the taxpayer.
The UK system is one of the best in the world but it's far too expensive. Fares have gone up again for the second year running. We have tried running the railways as a commercial operation and as a state enterprise. Either way they have to be subsidised - currently by £4 billion. But France has shown that money spent on the railways is never wasted. The French railway system has boosted their economy and helped to restore their neglected regions.
Capitalism cannot be applied to the railways. They are like the National Health Service, the Police Force, or the Fire Brigade, they are essential services. In a civilised country, people should not have to worry about the cost of health care and they should not have to worry about the price of a railway ticket. People must be able to travel, and government policies must be guided by social responsibility.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nation Revisited
All articles are by Bill Baillie unless otherwise stated. The opinions of guest writers are entirely their own. This blog is protected by the UN Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19: "We all have the right to make up our own minds, to think what we like, to say what we think, and to share ideas with other people.
Comments
All articles are by Bill Baillie unless otherwise stated. The opinions of guest writers are entirely their own. This blog is protected by the UN Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19: "We all have the right to make up our own minds, to think what we like, to say what we think, and to share ideas with other people.
Comments
Use the facility at the end of this blog to leave your comments and read what others have to say.
European Outlook
European Outlook
Our sister blog is posted on - https://europeanoutlook.blogspot.com
