EU: are you in or out? [POLL]

Thank you @shiney

I will check it out.
There are a few bookshops in town that carry old and unusual books will pay them a visit as I prefer the real thing over an e-book.

 

£61.90 new
Think I will settle for the used, dog-eared ones for 1p.

 

The EU want to flog goods to us, so a cosy arrangement (along the lines that Norway and Switzerland have) would be bound to happen. EU would love to have a centre of banking in Frankfurt, but they've been trying to do that for years, and to penalise banking in London, but they don't seem to have made any inroads. If we leave EU they will have no ability to try to knobble banking in London, and thus will be beholden to us controlling money worldwide, and that will drive a deal. Why banking needs to continue to be based in London I have no idea ... but it does seem to be (and for sure if we split from EU then our politicians will give the banks a leg-up, tax-wise or whatever, if needs be to ensure that they can use that as a negotiating chip with EU). [No love lost between me and the banks, and I think their behaviour is despicable, but market forces and people-voting-with-their-feet is clearly not happened en masse - although it has in this household!]

Quite. Or at least enough to do a deal.

Churchill used the phrase "United States of Europe" (19 September 1946). He wanted continental European union partly to stop future wars, but also because he thought that free trade would be a good thing (all would prosper).

At the start of war the USA was required to be neutral by statute. Britain initially bought arms etc. with cash, but we pretty soon ran out of Gold. USA came up with the concept of "Lend Lease" which allowed them to "give" us arms / supplies, whilst still remaining "neutral". Crafty way around the statue, which meant that in practice USA was supporting us from then onwards [Lend-Lease was enacted on 11-Mar-1941 ]

There was no indication that Hitler had any designs on UK. You could say that he gave no early indications that he wanted to own the whole of Europe and Russia either! but historians that I have read seem to think that Britain did not need to enter the war for fear of being invaded, and that that was the view held by government at the time. Thus we entered for "moral" reasons (and because we had given our word, and so on and such forth). Also because we knew that doing nothing would not be very cosy either - trade and prosperity was going to go to hell in a handcart anyway.

I don't think there were all that many - although my Father, an RAF fighter pilot in WWII, said they were very brave (but in some ways that was dangerous to others around them as a consequence)

"Polish pilots, represented about 5% of total Allied pilots in that battle"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Armed_Forces_in_the_West

 

Maybe not directly, but we knew that he too aware of our existence for our liking. He wanted to be allied with us. He wanted us to help him achieve his goals. If a bigger lad than me, who was also a bit mental, asked me to help him attack the neighbourhood, I'd know it was only going to end in me coming off worst if I cooperated. If successful, the bigger mental lad would want to take my share of power. If unsuccessful, I'd get killed too, so the only logical course would be for me to bite the bullet and throw all I had at the bigger the mental lad. This was what happened in 1939. hitler himself was obviously not the bigger lad, but Germany was. Germany was the bigger, mental lad, asking little old Britain to help him. If Germany had been successful, they would have wanted our share of the power. Being unsuccessful would mean we would fall with them. So an alliance was not an option, and when you're up against a mentalist, "if you're not my friend, then you're my enemy" and all that. So the only logical path was to pre-emptively attack Germany. There was nothing moral about it.

Don't get me wrong, I believe (with the benefit of being able to sit in my safe, comfortable house, safe in the knowledge that its history), that Britain's chosen course of action was morally right, and very commendable, but I also believe that morals played no part in our decision to declare war on Germany. How could they? At the very same time, we were still treating people in our Indian colony as slaves pretty much, and less than a year after the war, when we were too skint to maintain the empire, British morals led to a great bloodbath when Pakistan was created by a British officer drawing a line on a map and telling all the Muslims on the Indian side and all the Hindus and Sikhs on the Pakistani said to abandon everything and move, resulting in much fighting.

It is easy to look back on people like The Great Winston Churchill, the man known for his rousing speeches of bravado, and widely credited for leading us to victory over tyranny, but without judging, politicians of the day did what they thought was most logical for them. While Churchill was telling everyone "We will fight them on the beaches...", he was in hiding, constantly on the move from one low profile part of the country to another.

 

Like any other politician, Churchill had his fair share of short comings but I suspect that cowardice was not one of them.
He was seen as a positive, uniting force and had he been captured or killed, it would have been a massive blow to Britain and it's moral.
He had to be kept safe.
In modern warfare, no leader/president/king is on the front line, that is what generals are for, and even they are now more often than not behind computer screens directing the war via "remote control".

 

Because him being assassinated by Germany would have been such a body blow to the country & war effort. Don't forget he was 70 when war broke out - I don't suppose he was capable of darting about much!

If you doubt his bravery read about his exploits in the Boer War and his escape from prison camp. Later he resigned from Parliament in order to fight in the first world war; his regiment was stationed in reserve, and in order that he was part of the action he got himself posted to the front.

 

Or consider any of the unsavoury decisions that he took. Dresden in particular did not sit well with him even though he knew it was necessary.

 

I don't. I know he was a soldier before he was a politician. My point was that for some reason, Britain's involvement in WW2 is generally looked at through rose tinted glasses of glory and righteousness, when in fact it was nothing more or less than a bitter struggle for survival. Britain did what needed to be done to keep us British. People at the time must have realised that Germany was, on paper at least, the superior force. Our chances of winning were remote. If WW2 was started for moral reasons, then what were those morals? To do the right thing by a foreign ally (Poland) knowing that it would result in massive loss and suffering for our own side, including civilians, women and kids and olds, being bombed in their own homes while they slept, and sending all the young men off to foreign parts often with minimal training, to stand in some mud for 5 years while someone tries to kill them. Doesn't sound morally right to me. It sounds like pre-emptive necessity. I firmly believe that the politicians (or more likely their advisers) knew that one way or another all those bad things I've just mentioned were going to happen anyway, as whether we started it or not we would end up at war with Germany. Declaring war when we did just meant that we got into the fight while we still had some friends left in Europe.

 

The way I see it: it was a forerunner arrangement similar to that of NATO currently - an attack on one is an attack on all. I expect that the government were hoping that they could avoid Poland being invaded by saying "If you attack them, you attack us too". They must have thought it would work - Neville Chamberlain's "Peace for [in] our time" headlines a bit earlier, following the Munich conference, and so on. Churchill was the voice of doom at the time, but the rest of them thought that war could be averted. At least that's how I read the history books ...

 

This is pretty much what I was trying to say, but as usual, you've explained it far better than I could.

Britain's declaration of war on Germany, for many reasons, was essential. It was the only logical course of action for all the reasons you say. It was not a moral, right or wrong decision to make anyone feel better about themselves, it was something that had to be done.

 

And there was reason to think it might work. And if it had worked, then Britain would have been able to avoid going to war, and if it hadn't (as we know it didn't), it meant that when war spread in our direction, we'd have some hope of having some friends left to help us.

 

How? If ever there was an argument for a United States of Europe then WW2 is that argument surely?

Not that I want that, just saying...............