Democratic Society blog archive

Thanks to Nosemonkey, I read a fantastically dotty article on the Irish referendum from – where else? – the Daily Mail. Penned by – who else? – Peter Hitchens, it begins:

So our 1,000 years of history ends like this

Yes, sadly, there is no more UK. As of today, it’s gone. No Queen. No Parliament. No pints in country pubs. We’re all Europeans now, and how could we possibly bear such a hideous geographically-accurate imposition?

This eyes-closed hyperbole made me think about how old you would have to be to remember the UK not being in the European Union. I was born about six weeks after the UK joined in 1973, but of course the core EU countries joined much earlier, in 1957.

So we can expect, on Hitchens’s hypothesis, that French people under the age of 52 are no longer French, and don’t drink wine or have tiny dogs that crap on every inch of Parisian pavement. The German sausage industry is in terminal decline because western Germans under 52 aren’t German any more – thankfully, eastern Germans between 19 and 52 are still German, so will be able to support the foaming-stein-of-beer industry for a few years yet. How different from Italy, where pasta and Vespas are in terminal decline, and Ireland – where anyone under 36 no longer drinks Guinness. Spain is no longer Spain – not, as some might say, because there are 750,000 Brits living on the Costas, but because anyone under 29 hates chorizo and despises sangria. We are all driven into cultural uniformity, our national status and history expunged, under the jack-booted dictatorial tyranny of a voluntary association run by a democratic Parliament and elected heads of government.

It must be true, I read it in the Daily Mail.

Update: Oh God, I can’t take the irony. Don’t read the signature on this, the best-rated comment on the article, until you’ve enjoyed it in full:

Goodbye to 100 years of independence, freedom, democracy – and a sovereign nation.

With judges, the Armed Forces, the Police, the MPs, and the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition having to swear Oath of Allegience to a Foreign Power – we have been invaded, defeated – and now face a dictatorship by the ‘gilded elites’ – who are unelected, unaccountable – and unknown.

WE SHOULD BE ASHAMED – Totally Ashamed – of the dark future we are leaving for our children and grand-children.

Four times in the last 500 years we fought and defeated dictators and tyrants on the Continent – FOUR times we gave the Europeans back their freedoms. And they have HATED us for it.

I do not understand why the Queen seems happy to become nothing more than a cardboard cut-out, a puppet – no longer a Constitutional Monarch.

We have had our days in the sun of freedom and liberty – there is a very, very dark future ahead for our children.

WE SHOULD BE ASHAMED.

Cry – My Beloved Country.
- Anne Smith UK ex-Pat, Lot-et-Garonne, France, 3/10/2009 22:55

This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 7:45 pm and is filed under Europe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.