When my father had his stroke he would wonder why I couldn't smell the pine oil being extracted from the trees at Holly Barn, his childhood home. We would talk about his father's visit on leave from the Great War and how his older brother had run away rather than face saying goodbye. For him it had happened just the other day. I try to imagine what it must have been like to have to return to the trenches after a brief spell at home.
There was no home leave in my father's war, he sailed from Glasgow in the Queen Mary to eventually arrive in Egypt and on to Italy. He didn't make it back until 1946. Before he left his grandfather, who lost three sons in the Great War, had shook his hand and said they'd likely not meet again.
There was no great European war for my generation and for that we are asked to thank the EU and show our gratitude by voting to remain inside the community. I'm not so sure. How do the people of Serbia or Libya or the Donbas feel about that? Why do so few see the dangers of war with Russia, provoked in part by the EU and especially by what might be termed its military wing - Nato?
I voted to leave in 1975 and will do so again. This means sharing a bed with Empire loyalists, British nationalists, 1950s nostalgists etc. but so what. Look at the company the decent folk on the pro side have to keep, the warmongers and neoliberal elites, it's a wonder the stench doesn't overpower them.
Of course Plaid Cymru think that they can reform the EU from inside, well good luck with that. I believe that there is a very faint chance of the Welsh nation surviving outside the EU and none at all within, although this may be moot given the West's eagerness for confrontation with the East.
Excellent post. I agree entirely. I hope to put out my own blog post before the referendum explaining why I'm voting Out. Your reference to "neo-liberal" elites is a clue to the direction I'll be heading.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jac. It's a mystery to me how folk who purport to care about the Welsh nation are so in thrall to elites who see the nations of Europe as problems to be extirped - to use an old word familiar to us Cymry.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time we have our Welsh left wingers who can't seem to recognize the dogmatic free-marketeerism that rules the roost in this new Europe.
And then there's the utter subservience of the EU to Washington's neoco agenda when it comes to foreign policy. Do Plaid supporters even take an interest in global affairs any more?
If I wasn't old and past caring I think I'd go mad at the stupidity of it all.
Timely blog. Plaids position is ridiculous only if you consider them a party that wants independence. They don't, so there is no contradiction. That was shown this week, crowning king carwyn as the Queens representive in the colony to the west.
ReplyDeleteYou forget the social benefits that being in the EU brought which an isolated UK government will demolish under the guise of removing 'red tape'. Yes the corporates are doing the best to completely take it over, but there is a large resistance movement against this and the synchronisation of business. A Welsh vote for OUT plays into the hands of the English nationalist (who consider all on these isles to be subservient to them). It also isolates us from other small countries/nationalities in the EU, whose struggle is similar as many in Wales. We are too few and too small to achieve an independent Wales in an isolated UK, but stand a better chance by working with other 'minorities'. Incidentally, the USA is not what it once was.
ReplyDeleteYes we've heard all this before. You may well be right about the UK post Brexit but at least people would have the ability to change things via the ballot box. Within the EU? Not so much.
ReplyDeleteAs for Wales finding allies and effecting change via the small nations of Europe, that's pie in the sky. Did you not notice the humiliation of Greece or Ireland for that matter?
As for the US, have you not seen the extent of their military presence in Europe? Who in the mainstream opposes that. The US says sanctions against Russia and the EU falls into line, it says scrap SouthStream and it's done. These moves are actually against the economic and political interests of Europe but because the EU is a bureaucracy not a democracy their elites are on board with the globalist and warmongering ambitions of the corporations.
The theme underlying my post was that the UK's involvement in the Great War was disastrous and unnecessary. Today the seeds of a third world war are being sown, not least by the EU itself. No doubt the UK will be an eager participant, in or out. At least the matter of sovereignty and democracy offers the faintest glimmer that the public might choose a different course.
Oh and Wales too small to be independent? I seem to have heard that before as well.