Brian Reade: ‘Farage stated Brexit would cease the boats – we should ignore his cynical fantasies’
When I was growing up I often heard sarcastic claims that winning the Second World War was the worst thing that had happened to Britain. Relatives who had survived the Blitz or fought abroad would ponder the point of their generation’s sacrifice when the German and Japanese economies were booming and ours was bust. Today I see a different downside to that vital victory over Nazism.
It has locked a huge group of Britons into a mental straitjacket, unable to let go of a war that has been eulogised out of all proportion. The blind fools, nearly all of whom were not alive in the early-1940s, are manipulated by right-wing opportunists who profit from viewing every event through the prism of Dunkirk or D-Day.
This week Nigel Farage tried to shake off questions about his dubious finances and his war of ideas with a bin when he announced he would stop the boats by marshalling the Royal Navy to drag them all back to France through “Operation Fortress”, which would be “the largest military operation in the English Channel since World War Two”. Despite the fact that we don’t possess a fully-functioning Navy (even the warship on the front of Reform’s Operation brochure was flogged to Brazil eight years ago) and military experts and French authorities all mocked his stunt as a ludicrous non-starter, Farage went up in the opinion polls. Because so many naive Brits swallow his cynical fantasy that the only way this country will be great is by turning the clock back 80-odd years.
When France described Farage’s plan as a violation of its sovereignty, Reform MP Sarah Pochin tweeted: “Pity the French did not show the same resolve in defending their sovereignty in June 1940.” Which is lamentable in every sense of the word, especially in its ignorance. As many as 570,000 French people died in the Second World War, more than half of them civilians. The total of Britons killed was 450,000.
For years the Right has profited from peddling the insulting myth that British sacrifice alone defeated Hitler, therefore, we are superior to the rest of Europe. That lie won Brexit. Remember Vote Leave buses blaring the soundtrack to The Great Escape, billboards urging drivers to “Halt ze German advance! Vote Leave,” and Tory Mark Francois claiming: “My father was a D-Day veteran. He never submitted to bullying by any German. Neither will his son.” All tragic garbage.
But back to “Operation Fortress”. How come we need it when last summer Farage assured us that Reform’s mass deportations would end the small boats crisis? Wasn’t Brexit supposed to make Britain a border-secure fortress? Surely with Labour cutting Channel crossings by 44% this year, do we really need to distract what’s left of our Navy from monitoring Britain’s real enemies?
When you operate in Forties Fantasy World you don’t need to answer such questions. You just grab your dog whistle, claim the root of everyone’s problem is immigration, spout Churchillian rhetoric and tell the mugs that if you elect Reform, Britons never, ever, ever will be slaves. Which bumps up your popularity and reinforces the illusion that Britain can be magicked back to some glorious, all-white, problem-free past if we just put our trust in a dodgy salesman in a Union Jack suit with a boot full of snake oil. Snake oil sold in Spitfire-shaped bottles with instructions to be slugged back like a large glass of Vera Lynn.
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