Who can forget memory spans on the Continent are little better than those of the common goldfish. You know the animals I speak of? You recall them? Orange in colour usually. Fins. Scales. Mouths that open and close underwater. You may have kept one for a short time as a pet in childhood. It was probably flushed down the toilet like our trading relationship with Europe.
The insufficient ability to recall significant British victories in Germany and France is evident by the inability of the people to recall World War Two on a daily basis. For some stubborn, perverse reason they do not mention the conflict constantly. In every public conversation. It should be seen as a duty.
It is especially obvious by the way their political leaders only remember the conflict occurred on their one or two days of public remembrance each year.
Happily for everyone WW2 is ever present in Britain. Every utterance by a government minister holds an overt or undervert reference to the conflagration. Every newspaper article has WW2 as its bedrock. The cultural rabble on the other side of Doggerland may have forgotten our victory, but we have not. They may have gone on to forge a community of nations to prevent future conflict, but we have now (having Got Brexit Done) left it. We are firmly rooted forever in 1945. In VE Day. In box sets of black and white cinematic classics focused on the conflict.
“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” – I forget who said that.
Some would say we should let the Europeans wallow. Let them go on with their blank histories. Allow them to continue to make the same mistakes over and over in negotiations with the free trading, global powerhouse of Global Britain. I have sympathy for that point of view. It is what they deserve. Let’s do that after one last attempt to educate them on what is important. Let us be the bigger fellows. Let us have Lord Frost remind Brussels that we won WW2 the next time they talk about the Northern Irish. And perhaps he can mention another World War (1) and a certain World Cup too…
