Please don’t

Please don’t say “We didn’t win two world wars to be pushed around by a Kraut”.  How old are you?  Unless you’re over 120 years old you can’t have fought in two world wars, and unless you’re over 90 you can’t have fought in one. Don’t claim credit for something you haven’t done. You and I have no idea what those wars were like to live through. My father did fight in WW2, and he was a keen supporter of the European Union.  He saw it as a major factor contributing to peace in Europe since 1945.

Please don’t use words like betrayal when talking about MPs acting sincerely in what they see as the best interests of the country.  Britain is a representative democracy where we elect generally well informed Members of Parliament to make decisions on behalf of the country.  Perhaps this is why the majority of MPs voted in favour of remaining in the European Union.

Please don’t invoke Winston Churchill as a supporter. He led the country in a war which was forced upon Britain, not one he went looking for. He was a founding father of the idea of a European Union: in 1946 he advocated a close partnership between France and Germany from which could be built a peaceful and prosperous Europe. He was no Little Englander.

Please don’t say “We survived the blitz.” Because a lot of people didn’t.  Nor did you, unless you actually lived in a British city during WW2.  Nobody voted for the blitz, it was not a war of choice.

Please don’t equate Angela Merkel with Hitler.  She is a decent, democratic and pragmatic leader. She grew up in communist East Germany, and knows much more about living under totalitarianism than you do.

Please don’t wave the Union Flag around as if you own it, or as if you speak for everyone in the UK. It is the flag of a country whose people have many different opinions. There is no contradiction in flying it alongside the EU flag. The narrow nationalist agenda followed by the people most fond of waving the union flag is likely, over time, to result in the break-up of the UK. Scots are resentful of being dragged out of the EU, and will not tolerate nationalist English leaders for long. In Northern Ireland, once the contradictions of being part of the UK while also having a border with an EU country start to cause daily aggravation, a majority of the residents might soon decide that life would be easier as part of the Irish Republic. And the flag wavers could be left with just the cross of St George.

Please don’t think leaving the EU is somehow patriotic. Ponder why Trump and Putin want us to leave. Listen to the businessmen around the world who want to trade with the UK, who think we’re crazy to leave.

Please don’t insult our fellow Europeans. We come from the country of Shakespeare and the Beatles, and we also come from the continent of Michelangelo, Einstein, Marie Curie, Aristotle and Voltaire.  Celebrate it.

Please don’t lie, and please don’t encourage it or ignore it when people on your side of the argument lie. Just stop it.