The following snippets are from Robert Harris:
“Late one night in 1917, at the height of the First World War, Winston Churchill beckoned to a fellow Liberal MP to join him for a final look inside the deserted Commons chamber….This little room is the shrine of the world’s liberties.”
“Smile at the romantic rhetoric if you wish, but Churchill was correct. That ‘little room’ has served us well.”
It may have served those whom Harris calls “us” but that is a very shrunken “world.” Those of us from beyond the Pale, West of Liverpool and East of Suez and South of the Mediterranean could not see England’s House of Commons as a shrine of liberty. Churchill himself would not have been welcomed in India, nor Cairo,nor much of England for that matter. Nor, do I imagine, would any member of the Houses of Commons or Lords find much of a welcome in Baghdad today.
Mr. Harris was urging readers to join the Labour Party to topple Jeremy Corbyn. .I’m advised that in an area I know people are joining in droves to prop him. I share many of Corbyn’s beliefs but reckon I’ve more chance of being consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury than he has of becoming Prime Minister.
But that’s by the bye.
The next snippets are by Dominic Lawson, a stout Brexiteer and brother of the truly scrumptious Nigella. He addresses those who voted to remain in the EU with the words –
“OK, you’re angry. But ignore the vote and tanks could be on the streets.” From the context I think he means that the tanks will be on the streets so that the will of the people, or the 52% who voted for Brexit, will not be treated as null and void.
Now that would be a precedent.
I thought that the tanks of a foreign power might be on British streets to set at nought the will of that small majority of Brits. Probably that comes of being Irish.
In November 1919, on the first anniversary of the Armistice signed at Compiegne which silenced the guns of the Great War, the British paraded a phalanx of tanks past a saluting base at Ireland’s Old Parliament House, down-graded to a Bank, in Dublin’s College Green. Great numbers of Irishmen had joined the British Army inspired by chocolate boxy postcards of gossoons in khaki marching past the same spot, for hadn’t they been told that a grateful England would allow them an impotent Home Rule Parliament in the same building, and that England was the guarantor of the freedom of small nations?
But the Irish electorate decided to seize liberty with their own hands in December 1918 and returned republicans to 73 of Ireland’s 105 Parliamentary Seats – a rather more impressive victory for the republicans than the Brexiteers won in Britain. And, though most of the elected republicans were in British jails, those who could assemble met as Ireland’s elected Parliament and set about governing Ireland with their popular mandate.
The day of that great parade of British tanks, a number of members of Dail Eireann, and the Clerk of the Dail, were seized by British agents and sentenced to terms of imprisonment for conducting an illegal assembly.
There is indeed a comparison with the republicans who voted for Irelands independence in 1918 to rule ourselves and make our own laws free of London’s rule. Just as the Brexiteers as you call them have voted for England’s independence to rule themselves and make their own laws free of Brussels rule.
The relationship between Britain and Ireland was more militaristic than the one between the EU and England, so not sure where tanks come into it today though.
But I wonder, if the EU should prevent the will of the Irish people in demanding the end of water charges, would the same spirit of freedom grow in Ireland and would the republic be prepared to follow suit and vote once again for Irish independence to make our own laws free of Brussels rule.
It would be a shame if anyone ended up in jail over the corporates refusal to accept the will of 17 million people and a 1 million majority to leave.
I think you already know the answers to your question Jessica about a potential Rep. Of Ireland withdrawal from the E.U.
The answer is no, the spirit of the people down there is broken, & I don’t for see them doing anything of such a radical nature anytime soon
Our spirit was broken in 1916, it took a catalyst to breath life into it again. The events that led to that catalyst then, began on the steps of the GPO. That spirit is not gone but it has been supressed.
There are those of us who will still fight for all of our peoples independence, be that against King or Kaiser.
There’s no steps at the GPO. Pearse just stepped into the street and rad the Proclamation.
Anyhow, I was pointing out how Harris and Lawson were writing Ballocks. The EU is not going
to put tanks on London’s streets to frustrate Brexit, or arrest MPs who support Brexit or murder the Mayors of cities whuch voted for Brexit.
Churchill and his mates from “this little room” visited such, and worse ,crimes on Ireland.
Difficult to name anyone who wasn’t writing Ballocks during the whole affair on all sides including the EU parliament itself
Too much money involved and too much invested to let a little thing like democracy get in the way