(The following article is written
by a member of COPOV but does not necessarily reflect the views of COPOV’S
Management Committee nor its members)
‘THE PAST. IT
IS ANOTHER COUNTRY. THEY DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY THERE”
In
a week or so I shall celebrate my 70th birthday but not for me a
joyous occasion but simply a time to reflect on the past and in particular life
as it was in my formative years during the late nineteen fifties and the decade
of the nineteen sixties. The views, attitudes and opinions I held then have
remained with me to this day. But the United Kingdom I knew then has changed
beyond all recognition and in my view, biased as it is, not always for the
better. In 1968 the Shadow Defence Secretary in an emotive speech for which got
sacked from the Shadow Cabinet spoke in lurid language about the dangers of
mass immigration and membership of a European super state. Yet I would be
branded a fascist and racist were I to say in public that what he predicted has
in fact come about. For this I blame the hard left whose intolerance of
anybody’s view other than its own is shown in demonstrations, shouting, bullying
and flag waving in many of our cities. How ironic it is that the German fascism
of the nineteen twenties, thirties and early and mid forties contained the word
‘socialism’. Some years ago an eminent person (I forget who it was) gleefully
stated: ‘We are now living in a post Christian era’. At the time I was astonished at what he (or
she) said but, judging by the events of the last fifteen or so years, I am
beginning to think that person was right. Certainly Christian teaching in our
schools has become marginalised. Understandable, I suppose, in a country that
seemingly now believes multiculturalism is the norm. A country where the Heir
to the throne wants to be regarded as the defender of faiths not The Faith i.e.
Christianity and who, disregarding the tenets of the Church of which he will
supposedly become Head, seems intent on making his divorced wife Queen. And
this may well eventually happen because as the writer understands it the wife
of the King automatically becomes Queen. Most intelligent people realise that
this Princess Consort nonsense is exactly that: Nonsense. It has no
constitutional significance at all.
The
writer it has to be admitted is very pessimistic about the future of the United
Kingdom. The seeds of disunity were sown nearly twenty years ago by the Blair
government’s devolution programme. But then the road to hell is paved with good
intentions. Conceived at a time when the Labour Party was riding high in
Scotland with over fifty Westminster Members of Parliament it made the false
assumption that setting up a Scottish Parliament would settle matters once and
for all and that things could go on as normal with Labour relying on its
Scottish fiefdom to deliver Labour governments at Westminster. But look at what
has happened. At the 2015 General Election Labour was reduced to one (yes ONE)
Westminster seat. In Holyrood the S N P reigns supreme with Nicola Sturgeon
threatening to take Scotland out of the UK as a result of Brexit and making
demands for a second referendum on the future of the union. Nationalism in
Wales is not quite as strong a force as in Scotland and is most prevalent in
the rural Welsh speaking parts of West and North Wales. There has been some
success in the old mining valleys of South Wales but these have been few and
far between and seats particularly at local elections switch between Labour and
Plaid Cymru depending on whether you want British or Welsh socialism. At the
last Assembly elections in 2016 Labour continues in government with 29 out of
60 seats and relies for its majority on keeping the sole Liberal Democrat
member sweet. Proportional representation has meant that Labour continues to
govern Wales indefinitely with about 38% of the vote. In the mining valleys
many former Labour voters supported UKIP, the party thanks to the proportional
system now having seven seats. Its leader would you believe is the disgraced
former Conservative MP Neil Hamilton. The Conservatives will never win in Wales
and although we can poll between 25% and 30% nationally this will never be
enough as the three left wing parties (Labour, Liberal Democrats and Plaid
Cymru) will always combine to ensure this is so.
The
writer’s pessimism is reinforced by what has happened in the recent elections
to the Northern Ireland Assembly. Sinn Finn are now within one seat of the
Democratic Unionist Party. So it is now only a matter of time before the
Republicans/Nationalists obtain a majority. When this happens Westminster will
be forced to concede a referendum on the future of the province and cessation
will inevitably follow because as all Westminster governments have said in the
past: Attachment to the United Kingdom is retained only as long as a majority
wish it.
The
writer has lived for forty two years under Conservative governments at
Westminster and for 28 under Labour governments. Born at a time of rationing
and the setting up of the welfare state under the post war Labour government
(and in 1948 the establishment of the National Health Service) the writer
contends that the social democratic model established then still remains
largely intact today and that Conservative governments have in the main been
willing participants. We spend billions and billions of taxpayer’s money on
public services (and remember the government only has the money it raises from
its citizens) and still it is not enough. The National Health Service, the
Prisons, the Police, The Education Establishment, etc. all claim they are
underfunded. From what the writer has seen there seems to be very little
accountability for what is actually spent. And successive governments fail to
tell the truth namely that for many understandable reasons only a certain
percentage of the population pays tax to fund these public services and of
those who do pay many feel they are paying too much or are not getting value
for what they do pay. Labour’s solution is as it has always been: Pour a lot
more money in and tax the rich. With a leader and shadow Chancellor who worship
at the shrine of Marx how else could it be so?
The writer contends that if the Health Service is failing (and
admittedly he has not had to wait eight hours on a hospital trolley until a bed
is found and has not seen these failings first hand) it is because of costly
unnecessary administrative reorganisations over the last seventy years and an
inability to consider finance from any source other than out of general
taxation. If other European countries have a better health record than ours it
is because in most cases patients have some kind of insurance cover in
addition.
Last
year’s referendum on our future in the E U was bound to be divisive and with
the result so close it is not surprising that the losers are pressing for a
second referendum once the final terms have been agreed. The writer was on the
losing side but having had time to reflect thinks it was probably the right
decision. That said the writer has never been a fan of referendums as they only
seem to reinforce entrenched positions.
Some fanatics were adopting the absurd position that because of all the
English regions London was the only one to have voted ‘stay in’ the capital
city could unilaterally declare its independence from the rest of the country.
On the Conservative side the writer finds it astonishing that remainers like
Kenneth Clarke, Michael Heseltine and John Major cannot seem to appreciate the
concerns of those who wanted to leave and why : the eventual aim of total
political and monetary union, the complete lack of accountability by the
European Commission, the ‘fudging’ of entry terms for the poorer countries, the
fact that European Law over rules British Law, the free movement of labour
(which in effect means peoples) between countries whether desirable or
otherwise, mass immigration and the continual and seemingly nonsensical
directives from Brussels. ‘Why’ the writer wonders ‘should there be a United
States of Europe?’ There is not a United States of Asia, a United States of
Africa, a United States of South America. Even the United States of America is
a Confederation of States with each individual state setting its own laws on
things like sales taxes, voting rights and capital punishment. And while Donald
Trump lost the popular vote in the recent U S A Presidential election he
carried more states that Hillary Clinton and thus won in the Electoral College.
And incidentally even though the population of the USA has probably increased
by nearly 100 million in the last fifty years there are still only 435
Representatives in the House (unchanged for over fifty years) and two Senators
for each state irrespective of population.
The
writer began this article by regretting the demise of Christianity in this
country and the clear moral principles as set out in the Bible. Islam with its
teachings from the Koran is now the major religion in many of our English
cities, both large and small. Many in this country are fearful for the future
because Islam, as practised by the Jahid, is certainly not a peaceful religion.
Yet there are many good, kind Moslems and the writer has witnessed this first
hand. Forty five years ago when he was training as an accountant he had two
young men of the Moslem faith working with him and you could not meet two nicer
people. Terrorism, from whatever source, is a real threat in Europe and for the
United Kingdom to have foiled thirteen possible such attacks in recent years is
both alarming and disturbing.
The
writer is concluding this article on Easter Sunday, the day which has for
centuries and still is today a day of
joy for all Christians who continue to believe in the resurrection from the
dead of Jesus Christ and the hope that one day He will come again in glory. Yet
the world He supposedly came to save continues to be in turmoil. The Editorial
in today’s Sunday Telegraph concluding with the words ‘We wish our readers and
their families a very happy Easter’ seems far removed from reality when the
front page headline reads :’Fears Kim has missile that could hit America’ and
on page 12 ‘Scores of Syrian evacuees blown up in their buses by suicide van
driver’. Nearer to home there are still
people in authority who are in denial about the EU referendum result last June
and who will do their best either to derail the process or to ensure that any
deal the Prime Minister might negotiate would be totally unacceptable so as to
maintain the status quo. The writer just remembers the United Kingdom’s
original application to join the EEC or Common Market as it was then called in
1961 to 1963. For Harold Macmillan Prime Minister at the time it was the last
throw of the dice; Britain had been humiliated by the Suez fiasco and the EFTA
(European Free Trade Association) never got off the ground. At the time the
Labour Party was totalled opposed (although the 1966-1970 Labour government did
reapply) as were some thirty Conservative MP s with another fifty to seventy
having serious doubts. When the French President General Charles de Gaulle
vetoed the original application in 1963 he was not convinced that the United
Kingdom with its past ties to Empire and its historical links with the USA would be suitable member. Looking back fifty
or so years later the conclusion must surely be that the President was probably
right.
The
writer accepts that ever since the ending of the Second World War in 1945 the
world has not been a happy place but we seemed to know which side we were on:
The U S A with its NATO allies against the USSR and its Warsaw Pact allies with
most of the other countries classing themselves as ‘nonaligned’. These days it seems things are much more fluid
and moving in different directions.
We
were guided by our parents and teachers, our parents giving us the stable
family unit which is lacking in so many cases today. Our moral principles were
based on biblical teaching. Society is more secular a situation which many on
the left actively encourage. Many pride themselves on being atheists or
agnostics. The writer truly believes
that the western Judeo Christian civilisation which has underpinned our society
over the last two thousand years is in grave danger of collapse and eventual
extinction so yes for him
The past was
another country. We did do things
differently there.
1st
April 2017
