On Thursday, June 23, Britons go to the polls to vote on whether their country will remain a part of the European Union. Based on the most recent opinion polls, it seems that the murder of Jo Cox has had the hoped-for effect, and turned the tide in favor of Remain. Both bookies and the financial markets are now weighing the odds against a Brexit.
Nick McAvelly has a reminder from history about the importance of independence, national sovereignty, and self-government. His observations apply not just to the UK and other member states of the European Union, but to any formerly free nation that now groans under the yoke of a distant, unaccountable, and tyrannical power.
The Issue at Hand
by Nick McAvelly
On the 4th of August 1941, Winston Churchill boarded the battleship Prince of Wales at Scapa Flow and, escorted by the Canadian destroyers Restigouche and Assiniboine and the British destroyer Ripley, headed across the Atlantic.[1] This was an act of considerable courage, for as the journalist H.V. Morton wrote, they were sailing ‘through seas where U-boats lay in wait, not dreaming that the supreme prize of a pirate’s life lay upon these waters.’[2]
Five days later, on the 9th of August, the Prince of Wales sailed into Placentia Bay in Newfoundland, and the first wartime meeting between Winston Churchill and the President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, took place.[3]
Roosevelt had already discussed making a formal declaration of his post-war aims with Sumner Welles, the Under Secretary of State.[4] In the third volume of Churchill’s history of World War 2, Churchill stated that ‘the substance and spirit of what came to be called the ‘Atlantic Charter’ was in its first draft a British production’[5], but the request to produce that first draft came from the wily American President. This manoeuvre of Roosevelt’s ensured that the British could not disavow the President’s post-war aims later on.[6] Note also that this first draft was subsequently altered, so that the final version of the document recorded the political aspirations of both the British and the Americans. [7]
Here are the opening three articles of what was to became known as the Atlantic Charter:
The President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom, being met together, deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world.
First, their countries seek no aggrandisement, territorial or other.
Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned.
Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them.[8]
The Atlantic Charter matters to us today, and not just because it is a written record of the principles we fought to defend during World War 2. The Atlantic Charter’s existence refutes the anti-democratic assertion that anyone who wants to be master of their own fate politically must be ‘right wing’.
If the Nazis were ‘right wing’, and the principles of the Atlantic Charter are diametrically opposed to what the Nazis stood for, then the assertion that anyone who believes in the principles of the Atlantic Charter must be ‘right wing’ is clearly an absurdity.
In truth, we should all take pride in the fact that our nations stood against Nazi tyranny, and we should be thankful that Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt took the time to write down exactly what it meant, in political terms, to do so.
The British historian Sir Max Hastings wrote that many of the people who lived through the war could only describe their experience by saying ‘all hell broke loose’.[9] Our soldiers, sailors and pilots, together with our fellow citizens, did not go through all that for nothing. They fought throughout the war to ensure that all peoples would have the right to choose the form of government under which they are to live. And yes, that includes the descendants of the victors. If the British people exercise that right and choose not to support the aggrandisement of a European super-state, but to restore the sovereignty of the British nation state, by choosing self-government over subservience to a distant political power structure, then their actions will be in accordance with the principles of the Atlantic Charter.
So as the ‘Brexit’ referendum draws near, take no notice of the anti-democratic insinuation that anyone who wants the British people to be in charge of their own affairs must be ‘right wing’. That is an ad hominem insult which is not only false, it has absolutely no bearing on the issue at hand.
The most important aspect of any political system, so far as ordinary citizens are concerned, is whether they are able to terminate the career of a politician who uses his power badly. The aggrandisement of a European super-state, with its bureaucratic centres physically situated in other countries, has already made it next to impossible for a British citizen to exercise any control over European politics, and yet European politicians can exercise control over our lives with no trouble at all.
Ask yourself this: If the European political system does something you disagree with in principle, which affects your quality of life and damages your personal finances, can you do anything about it? Can the politicians you have elected at a national level do anything about it? If your answer to these questions is no, then you are not in control of your own affairs.
If you are confident that politicians will always act in your best interests, and on that basis, you believe that you no longer need to be in control of your own affairs, then this is your opportunity to test your beliefs. However, if your beliefs turn out to be false and the political situation turns bad, then you will have no option but to suffer in silence, because if you vote to remain in the European super-state, then you are handing political control of your own life over to another party, finally and forever.
On the other hand, you may hold the view that no one has any guarantee that a European political elite will always act in their best interests, and it is possible that at some point in the future, your freedom to live according to your own lights could be taken away from you, the life you have left could be degraded to the extent that it is unbearable, and your bank account could be emptied, because after all, someone has to pay for ruining your country and your life. And there will be nothing you can do about any of it.
The issue then, is not whether voting to leave the European super-state is ‘right wing’. As we have seen, the very notion is absurd. And pay no mind to any politicians who claim that unpleasant things will happen should the British people take control of their own affairs. Remember, we voted those politicians in to run our country for us in a way that allows us all to live freely and without fear. If they can’t do their job, then we can always vote them out and employ confident, capable people instead.
The issue at hand is whether you want to hand over responsibility for your own affairs to another party, in which case the vote you cast this week will be the last that will ever carry any weight, or whether you understand that no political state, now or in the future, can be trusted to act in your own interests, in which case you are going to have to take responsibility for your own affairs as much as possible, and keep what control you have over the agents of the British state, in the form of a vote that can actually make a difference.
The choice is yours.
References:
1. | en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Prince_of_Wales_(53)#Atlantic_Charter_meeting (accessed 21/06/16); Morton, H.V. Atlantic Meeting, Methuen & Co Ltd., p. 63 | |
2. | ibid., p. 49 | |
3. | ibid., pp. 82-89 | |
4. | Hamilton, N. The Mantle of Command: FDR at War 1941-42, Biteback Publishing, p. 10, p. 16 | |
5. | Churchill, W. The Grand Alliance, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, pp. 346-347 | |
6. | Hamilton, N. op cit., p. 25 | |
7. | Hamilton, N. op. cit., pp. 35-36 | |
8. | Churchill, W. op. cit., p. 352 | |
9. | Hastings, M. All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939-1945, William Collins, Kindle loc. 19 |
“..because if you vote to remain in the European super-state, then you are handing political control of your own life over to another party, finally and forever.”
Excluding death, in the realm of human affairs, nothing is ‘forever’. The only constant is change. Even the Sun will stop shining one day..
Just the same, VOTE BREXIT, it’s the sensible option.
Walt,
The so-called ‘referendum’ isn’t legally binding on the UK government. So even in the unlikely event of a decision for Brexit, Britain will stay in the EU because most of the country’s elites are pro Europe.
In a real referendum the decision of the people is sovereign, not in this case.
It’s basically a pea and thimble trick by the local plutocrats.
As tragic as the death of Jo Cox was surely the British public will not be swayed from voting for BREXIT?
The maudling recall of parliament was an exercise in hypocrisy, it was even reported that Cameron and Osborne were seen to wipe away a few tears! CROCODILE TEARS, when these are the prime architects of austerity. Did they cry for the people who committed suicide over the bedroom tax?
Did they cry when they took £30 per week off the most vulnerable disabled people in the land? Have the cried at a fallen soldiers funeral or wept at the sight of an injured soldiers wounds?
Their odious attempt to conflate The murder of a labour MP
(by a non affiliated lunatic) with the BREXIT campaign is beyond contempt. Nigel Farage has had multiple death threats which would seem to be a matter of supreme indifference to them. Cameron’s only connection with Jo Cox is that he has most likely sneered at her (in his typical Bullingdon bully boy fashion) over the despatch box at PMQ’S!
If they believe that the BREXIT “tone” was the cause of her death then will they own the foiled attempt on Donald Trump
By a Brit as they have said and continue to say very inflammatory things about him?
I believe democracy can be declared dead in the UK on Friday morning if the remainder win, Merkel and Juncker will gleefully rub our noses in it. Just look at what the mendacious German witch has done to Greece, we can look forward to more of the same!
Brexit would never have been allowed, even if there were enough votes.
There are more of them than there are of us.
Bad times are racing towards us all.
I have never known the BBC to be so blatantly biased as they are now re the referendum. Maybe I was naive before – never really saw it – but the remain camp have all the advantages behind them – a biased BBC, backroom government propaganda specialists etc. We Brits or should I say Perfidious Albion have almost been as good at taqiyya as the Muslims, especially during wartime and at this time they are running rings around the Brexit lot who appear to be rank amateurs in comparison.
To cap it all they appear to have two events that were to their advantage: first the computer glitch that deprived the late voter registrations of 2 hours before the deadline SO the extended the deadline by 2 DAYS therefore giving the lacksadaisical young people (more likely to vote in) time to get their act together.
Second was the killing of Jo Cox MP. Every day the death of the “perfect, saintly” Jo Cox is the subject of a new event – today is yet another
memorial. The killing of Jo Cox must go down as the most manipulated of any by the government. It stopped the runaway success of the Brexit campaign dead in it’s tracks. On that basis who gained by her death, and who arranged it?
In the US both Robert Kennedy and John Lennon were assassinated by mentally ill killers under strange circumstances believed by some to have been manipulated by the CIA as some sort of “robotic drone”. No doubt there are more.
Is it possible that the same thing has happened to Jo Cox? Let’s face it not necessarily the government, but their puppet masters, the “dark forces” that were possibly implicated in the death of Princess Diana. One thing is for sure – we will never know the truth it will be buried forever.
BTW I will be voting out tomorrow but I don’t have the confidence about Brexit prevailing now as I did last week.
One often wonders at how regularly authoritarianism is able to swing public opinion in its favor through the intervention of a (conveniently) tragic coincidence. Never let a crisis go to waste someone said.
I didn’t catch the name of the unfortunate MP Cox’s assassin; it wouldn’t be van der Lubbe by any chance?
Yeah, I have been wondering if the BBC has overplayed it’s hand here in that many people who were dubious about BBC bias can now plainly see it.
I simply call it the Biased British Caliphate.
Regardless of a “win” for the remain camp the scales have fallen from the eyes of a significant minority of the British public.
Cameron has been exposed as a LIAR and his Chancellor a bully who has threatened to punish the voters for BREXIT with further fiscal misery.
It has been clear for sometime now that BOJO and Gove
Have adopted a political escape route and will blame Nigel Farage for losing the campaign.
Every warning that Nigel Farage has given about immigration has been true. Turkey will be fast tracked into to EU and then the European continent is doomed.
Were I British, I would be voting Brexit since I don’t want those clowns in the EU dictating to me.
To all the Brits reading this, may you choose wisely tomorrow. Not for your own sake but for the sake of your grandchildren.
Think further. You know that in five hundred more years, the EUers will be a gray homogenized people without diverse cultures, even without diverse languages, and with terrifying tyranny enforcing social and economic justice….or worse. The remnants of true diversity and enlightenment thinking will be a few quaint artifacts in museums.
. . . for the sake of the goodness and sublime superiority of Western civilization.
Voting Remain now would be like voting for the USSR in February 1989.
Its internal problems will lead to its collapse. It’s just a question of who goes first.
I hope it is us in Britain.
The EU toads are too clever by half. The iron laws of arithmetic are at work upon the real result yet to be revealed.
I hope it’s BREXIT tomorrow but if it isn’t, like the unpleasant prospect of a Clinton victory here, there are still tectonic forces at work. A Trump victory or BREXIT might even be undesirable because they could obscure the dysfunction further and shield those responsible for it.
I don’t think we realize how fragile our hugely complex economies are. Japan has defied gravity in unexpected fashion but its resilience might be because it insulated itself from the triple disaster of Muslims, race, and mass immigration. Nonetheless, its Keynesian excesses are one of those tectonic forces at work in very unhealthy ways.
Will Brexit seriously hurt Britain financially? This seems to be the BIG question for a people bereft of national pride, bereft of shame and willing to sell out the sacrifice of so many.
Well it’s certainly hurting Switzerland and Norway, right?
All this nonsensical yabber about how Britain will be dead, excluded, etc., have the EU’ers forgotten Y2K?
Did the sky fall then? Nothing happened.
And in this case, the only difference is Britain would be free–in theory, because I don’t think Cameron and the EU criminals will allow a Brexit to happen.
Brits, PLEASE GO!!
I think it was Coolidge who said that in his experience nine out of ten problems he saw coming down the road skid into the ditch before they reached him.
As sorry as I am that Jo Cox was murdered by a lunatic, the fact that Remain has played this up is disgusting.
I watched Nigel Ferage’s last speech and I found it rather moving.
“Which flag do you want to live under?”
Which flag indeed. The Brits have one chance to voice their opinion.
Best of luck tomorrow. I’m sick of bad news.
I heard from someone close in an aged care home in UK. She felt she had messed up her vote but then the staff had “fixed it up for me”! One wonders how many votes will be “fixed up” for the incapacitated, aged, illiterate or whatever in this seriously important referendum? Or how many of such votes will see the light of day? Maybe I am just being cynical?
Still on topic (I hope) for those who are saying the referendum is “not binding” on the British Government and will not be honoured – the Remain camp is making an awfully big fuss and spending multi-dollars for something that won’t really matter in the long run, don’t you think?!