Do we remember? Britain and World War II

World War II was such a vivid historical memory in Britain when I was growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, that I sometimes had the impression that the conflict had had ended at all. When I attended the celebrations for the 50^th anniversary of VE Day in Marlborough in 1995, it was if my local town was now appearing in its true form: that both survivors of the conflict and their descendants still inhabited that bygone age, and that the passing of time had been little more than an illusion. I can still remember the sounds of jubilant street dancing mixing with the ghostly wail of the air-raid siren, the sight of proud veterans showing off their uniforms and medals, and the smell and taste of freshly-baked cakes and coronation chicken.  Although World War II led to far greater loss of life on a global scale, our memory of the conflict seemed to be almost jubilant, in contrast to the sombre commemorations of the First World War, and this seems not so much to do with the fact that it was comparatively recent, and more to do with the way in which the conflict had involved unprecedented mobilisation of ordinary civilians, as Home Guard, ARP Wardens, Land Army volunteers, Wren girls, and members of the Auxiliary Fire Service.

In contrast with what seemed like the senseless slaughter of World War I, people felt much more confident in celebrating Britain’s success in defeating Nazi Germany in the Second World War. The conflict was therefore imbued with a greater sense of clarity and moral purpose, even if we tend to forget about the efforts of the British army to preserve the empire in the Far East, and the country’s inadequate response to the plight of Europe’s Jews.

More importantly, whilst other countries had lain down their arms in 1945, the conflict has raged on in British cinemas and living rooms ever since. War movies were amongst the most successful films of the postwar era: Casablanca, The Great Escape, The Dam Busters, The Longest Day, Where Eagles Dare and The Dirty Dozen thrilled audiences at the time and have continued to be regarded amongst the most popular and successful films of modern times. More recently, films such as the The King’s Speech, Dunkirk and Darkest Hour show that our appetite for the conflict has not diminished. In contrast, the recent success of 1917 is a rare example of a successful film about the First World War, a conflict that provides a less satisfying moral narrative.

The Second World War is also one of few conflicts that has spawned a wide range of TV comedies. Growing up in the 1990s, there were usually repeats of classic comedies such as Dad’s Army, which remains popular to this day and ‘Allo ‘Allo, which featured British actors doing terrible impressions of German spies and members of the French resistance. One of my favourite programmes of the time, now sadly forgotten, was ‘Goodnight Sweetheart, in which Gary Sparrow, an ordinary Nineties man, discovers a secret portal in his garden that takes him back to a London pub in the time of the Blitz. The show captures the strange relationship between modern Britain and the era of the Second World War. Early episodes of the programme highlighted the differences between the 1940s and 1990s, with Gary Sparrow struggling to adjust to the changes in dress, money, speech and cultural attitudes of people in wartime London. However, these differences quickly fade away as Sparrow leads a regular sign-song round the pub piano, chats up the barmaid and shares in the challenges faced by Londoners in 1941.

In shows like Goodnight Sweetheart and Dad’s Army, we sense that strong identification with the courage and determination of the civilian population, whether they were Home Guard volunteers, ARP wardens, or black-market traders, in the face of terrifying threat. The enemy itself was largely invisible, usually only appearing overhead in the form of a deadly air raid. But this sense of an invisible menace from across the Channel remained potent in the imagination of the British people during my childhood, manifested in increased prejudice against the German people, and a suspicion towards Europe in general. When we laughed at Basil Fawlty’s increasingly zany attempts to avoid ‘mentioning the war’ to his German guests, we recognised in ourselves an enduring obsession. This was fuelled especially by the tabloid press, who in the 1990s regularly covered encounters in European football and politics in the 1990s, as if this was simply another phase in an ongoing conflict stretching back to 1914. Although we boasted that ‘football’s coming home’ when England hosted the Euro 96 football tournament, we still viewed ourselves as the outsiders when drawn to face Germany in the Semi-Final, and the Daily Mirror could not resist using the language of popular war films on its front page. When England lost the match, I remember feeling quite vividly that the result was an historic injustice, and that the ‘bad guys’ had won. 

EU correspondents in the 1990s wrote as if they were reporting on British army manoeuvres in a particularly hostile conflict zone. One broadsheet columnist of the time was famous for his ability to make the mundane details of EU trade negotiations sound like a thrilling wartime spy movie: full of ‘plots’ and ‘traps’ laid by the ‘dastardly’ Europeans, and urging British politicians to defend their liberty and freedom against these threats. Having made a name for himself as a journalist in Brussels, he went on to become a Conservative MP, Mayor of London and is now, of course, the country’s Prime Minister.

We should be in no doubt that the way the Britain has commemorated World War II has shaped how we see ourselves in the present day. Images from the conflict continue to pop up in difficult times. During a difficult stage of the Brexit negotiations last year, the Daily Mail printed a famous cartoon published after the Dunkirk evacuation of 1940, in which a defiant British soldier shakes his fist defiantly at Europe and vows to continue the fight: ‘Very well alone’.

More famously, the ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ poster devised in 1939, has been widely imitated ion the twenty-first century, appearing on Tea-towels, mugs, items of clothing and, inevitably, memes on social media. According to design historian Susannah Walker, the poster has become an evocation of British stoicism: the "stiff upper lip", self-discipline, fortitude and remaining calm in adversity. The success of the poster owed much to the financial crash of 2008, and the need for an inspiring message from the past in a time of crisis. Ironically, though, the poster was barely used during the Second World War itself. The slogan was regarded as patronising and divisive, given that wartime suffering was not easily distributed throughout the country, so carrying on was much easier for some than for others, and almost impossible for those whose house had been destroyed, and loved ones killed or wounded. In our modern commemoration of the conflict, we tend to forget about the real hardship, fear, suffering and doubt that ordinary people experienced during the Second World war. Instead, we have mythologised the conflict, remembering an unbreakable Blitz Spirit in which the British people’s single-handed defiance of Hitler enabled them to triumph against the odds.

It is understandable why British people have found this myth so persuasive and powerful over the last 75 years, but I believe that it is becoming increasingly dangerous. If we do not understand the real reasons why Britain was able to celebrate the defeat of Nazi Germany on VE Day, then we will learn the wrong lessons from the conflict. In the final analysis, the war was a triumph of strategic planning and international cooperation. Even in ‘its darkest hour’ in 1940, Britain was never alone. It still controlled one of the largest empires in human history, and this provided crucial opportunities to hamper German military efforts. More importantly, the entry of the Soviet Union and the United States into the war in 1941 proved to be vital turning-points. Britain’s contribution to the war remained important, but not because of its much-mythologised ‘stiff upper lip’. Instead Britain contributed vital technological innovations to the preparations for D-Day and the assault against Germany on the western Front, creating the famous floating harbours that supported the D-Day landings, and constructing the PLUTO fuel pipeline that sustained the military operations of the allied forces until the German surrender in May 1945.

The challenges that we face in the twenty-first are complex and global in nature. Britain has spent too much of the last 75 years believing that a retreat into ‘splendid isolation’ will insulate it from these challenges, our safety assured by our superior national character, our values and our inherent righteousness. As we are being reminded once again in 2020, the world doesn’t work like that. A spirit of plucky defiance and manic improvisation is no substitute for strategic planning. Leadership requires attention to detail and courage, not just bombastic speeches. If we believe that Britain is exceptional, we may forget that we are also vulnerable. As the country marks VE Day on Friday, take time to draw inspiration from a conflict in which the British people faced a terrible threat, and overcame it with common purpose, international alliances and technological innovation. And then – look forwards.

Auschwitz-Birkenau, November 2018

There is no poetry in Auschwitz-Birkenau. When we arrived, it was cold. Standing outside the camp in winter clothing, there was a nervous anticipation in the group as we considered what lay before us: as if we would soon encounter a formidable enemy, or hear a stern but life-affirming lesson. Instead we met only stark and comfortless truths: boring, bare stone walls, grey watchtowers and the banal methodology of extinction. The guides related the details with clinical and ruthless clarity. The bricked-up isolation cells in which prisoners were left to stand until they suffocated or starved to death; the ‘selections’ where doctors made decisions about the fate of human beings according to their utility as slaves rather than their intrinsic worth as individuals; the cynical betrayal of Jewish families who were told to bring their most valuable possessions for a journey to a new life and were then robbed and murdered on arrival at the camp. We saw pictures of small children clutching at bags they would no longer need. As we stood at the end of the tracks at Birkenau, where some went left and some went right, we were reminded that this was only the culmination of a longer process, in which one group of people came to believe that, because of their innate superiority to those who were once neighbours and colleagues, the normal moral rules no longer applied. In the words of the camp guard who Primo Levi witnessed beating a prisoner on arrival at the camp: ‘there is no why here’. We did not learn lessons in Auschwitz-Birkenau; we trod in footsteps that we would not wish to walk in, and bore witness to those who had to walk that way nevertheless. 

When it got too cold, we left.

History Lessons

"We need to be reiterating the benefits of Brexit. This is so important in the history of our country, it’s Magna Carta, it’s the burgesses coming at parliament, it’s the Great Reform Bill… It’s Waterloo! It’s Crécy! It’s Agincourt! We win all these things!"

Speech by Jacob Rees-Mogg at the Conservative Party conference, October 2017

"Very strange bridges are used to make the passage from one state of things to another; we may lose sight of them in our surveys of general history, but their discovery is the glory of historical research."

Herbert Butterfield, 'The Whig Interpretation of History', 1931

 

The Battle of Agincourt, 1415: one of the 'stopping places' in British history.

As Damian Le Bas has recently pointed out in his work on atchin tans in Traveller communities, the best journeys are all about ‘the stopping places’. Our love of the past is similarly rooted in particularly memorable events and turning points. These are the stopping places of history: battles and treaties, reforms and coronations. But these moments do not in themselves constitute historical analysis: we also need to understand the details of how the journey unfolded. Writing eighty years ago about the follies of ‘whig history’, Herbert Butterfield was scathing about the English tendency to pick and choose their history; alighting on moments synonymous with freedom, glory and heroism – and ignoring everything else.

In truth, whig history has never gone out of fashion, but its exponents rely on it now more ever. According to those who are enthusiastic about Britain leaving the European Union, the success of Brexit is guaranteed precisely because of Britain’s glorious past: our defiance of continental power at Agincourt, Waterloo, and Dunkirk, and our history of parliamentary reform. Heroes and pioneers exemplify the nation's entrepreneurial and independent spirit that will see us through any difficulties: as we are now almost continuously reminded by MPs who should know better: all we have to do is ‘believe’.

Belief requires some foundations – if you are basing your belief on English history, then you are best off squinting, rather than taking a clear-eyed look. For every Agincourt, there was a Castillon, for every Waterloo, a Balaklava. This kind of observation is anathema to amateur enthusiasts like Jacob Rees-Mogg, who revels in his reputation as the ‘MP for the Nineteenth Century’, but who actually can’t deploy an historical analogy without botching it. In truth, however, his supporters will forgive him. For many, the reference back to the glorious past is all that is needed to set hearts racing and passions aglow – in simplifying history for his credulous supporters, Rees-Mogg and his ilk provide them with essential vindication that cannot be found in the complexities of the present.

However, his recent claim that Theresa May’s White Paper on Brexit was ‘the greatest vassalage since King John paid homage to Philip II at Le Goulet in 1200’ was a real collector’s item in this burgeoning genre. Ostentatious display of historical learning – check. Reference to the evil colonising instincts of Europe – check.  Illiterate over-simplification, ignorance and misuse of history – check check check. The inaccuracy of the claim can be dealt with in a Tweet – John’s biographer Marc Morris did the honours – but the folly runs deeper than a lack of understanding of medieval diplomacy.

The bigger implication of Rees-Mogg's claim is that, in his conception of ‘our island story’, we have not endured any comparable setbacks in foreign policy in the previous eight hundred years. From 1215 onwards, English history is on its glorious journey – ‘we win all these things’. But this is the greatest falsehood of all, for we have suffered far worse, and most especially when we have lost our influence altogether in European affairs. The Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis of 1559 does not feature in your Brexiteer’s whistle-stop of history. It was a devastating humiliation; while the new queen Elizabeth I raged in the background, the kings of France and Spain carved up Europe between them. As part of the horse-trading, England’s last continental possession, Calais, was handed back to France, with the pleas of the English diplomats disregarded. Elizabeth threatened to behead them, but she soon had to adapt herself to a new reality: thoughtless foreign policy had left England a second-class European power. Throughout her reign, Elizabeth would be dependent on precarious alliances with more powerful states for survival. Compromise was not shameful but necessary. The propaganda of the Armada portrait tells a different, and misleading story. Elizabeth knew that isolation from Europe left her kingdom at the mercy of external events; slowly, her careful diplomacy re-established England as an influential participant in European affairs.

Would you buy a used historical narrative from this man?

Travelling through the past with Jacob Rees-Mogg is like taking an extended voyage along England’s scenic country roads in a vintage car; the driver, all tweed, motoring gloves and joie de vivre, extols the merits of the scenery that you pass through – but you are left with the nagging suspicion that he isn’t in the least concerned about where you might end up. Nor, in fact, does the driver seem to notice any of the inconveniences of the journey: the vehicle itself splutters and shudders (it has not been well-maintained) and there are several miles of badly maintained roads, sections of which are almost impassable, and so narrow that the car frequently has to reverse to let others pass. The driver is not particularly interested in your observations (let alone your concerns), instead he continues to airily extol the wonders of the landscape of this green and pleasant land. Too late in the journey, as the scenery darkens, it becomes apparent to you (the unheeded passenger), that the driver’s narcisstic ramblings are a distraction from real dangers ahead. Better hope you arrive at an atchin tan, a stopping place, somewhere, anywhere, before you find yourself in very unfamiliar territory indeed.st vassalage since King John paid homage to Phillip II at Le Goulet in 1200.Travelling through the past with Jacob Rees-Mogg is like taking an extended voyage along England’s scenic country roads in a vintage car; the driver, all tweed, motoring gloves and joie de vivre, extols the merits of the scenery that you pass through – but you are left with the nagging suspicion that he isn’t in the least concerned about where you might end up. Nor, in fact, does the driver seem to notice any of the inconveniences of the journey: the vehicle itself splutters and shudders (it has not been well-maintained) and there are several miles of badly maintained roads, sections of which are almost impassable, and so narrow that the car frequently has to reverse to let others pass. The driver is not particularly interested in your observations (let alone your concerns), instead he continues to airily extol the wanders of the landscape of this green and pleasant land. Too late in the journey, as the scenery darkens, it becomes apparent to you (the unheeded passenger), that the driver’s narcisstic ramblings are a distraction from real dangers ahead. Better hope you arrive at an ‘atchin’ tan’, a stopping place, somewhere, anywhere, before you find yourself in very unfamiliar territo

The Illusion of Consensus

"The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear." – Gramsci

For two decades, British politics seemed to be dominated by a simple and pragmatic political consensus: voters wanted freer markets, devolution of powers, social liberalism and a strong role for Britain on the world stage. In reality, the consensus never existed, and its fragility has been brutally exposed in the last twelve months. Support for market intervention, centralisation, social conservatism and isolationism have probably never been higher. It may be depressing for liberals like me, but since we have been very good at telling others that they need to adapt to the new world order – to sink or swim – maybe we need to start taking our own advice.

From the perspective of 2017, this consensus is already looking like a relic, but two years ago the trajectory of British politics seemed to be firmly established, and almost irrevocable: the major parties might squabble around the margins, but by and large they occupied the same political territory. Tony Blair’s three election victories provided the template, and his self-styled ‘heirs’ in the Conservative Party responded by modernising their party. Like Blair, David Cameron and George Osborne upheld socially and economically liberal values; they supported gay rights, free(ish) markets, private involvement in the provision of public services and, of course, they wanted Britain to remain a member of the European Union.

In retrospect, the strength of this consensus was also its weakness. Between 2005 and 2015, millions of ‘core’ voters shifted their political allegiance away from the main parties. The Tory right migrated angrily to Ukip, whilst voters to the left of the Labour Party grew frustrated with the triangulations of its leaders and sought out a more full-throated committed to the rhetoric, if not the practice, of socialism, which they found in the Green Party in England or in the nationalist parties of Scotland and Wales. Many socially conservative Labour voters, especially in the north, shifted to Ukip. The Liberal Democrat Party, once a safe haven for the ‘protest voter’, paid the price for entering a coalition with the Conservative Party and suffered a near-collapse in 2015.

They're not laughing now.

The voters’ flight from the consensus of the Blair years was heavily masked by the UK’s anachronistic voting system, which exaggerated support for the traditional parties to an almost embarrassing degree. In May 2015, Ukip and the Greens won nearly five million votes between them, but won only one seat apiece. Nevertheless, Cameron’s unexpected majority made the shifts in political gravity over the previous decade seem largely superficial: it appeared that most voters would still return to consensus politics when called upon to do so. But this ignored the fact that Cameron had failed to put forward any positive agenda in 2015. Instead, he focused on the threat of an unpatriotic Labour-SNP coalition that would ‘bankrupt Britain’ and the promise of a referendum on EU membership that he personally opposed. Lacking enthusiastic support from his own members, let alone the country, his victory was dependent on a toxic combination of weakness and fear. 

Neither was there much enthusiasm for the political alternative offered by Labour. Left-wing voters were appalled at Ed Miliband’s attempts to compromise with socially conservative voters by accepting the freeze on benefits and putting the promise to ‘control immigration’ on campaign mugs. There has probably never been an election in which the candidates had so little to offer their political activists or the wider electorate; both leaders campaigned on the basis of who they weren’t, and the result that there was little sorrow over their respective departures in 2015 (Miliband) and 2016 (Cameron).

And what has become of the ‘centre ground’ that both men were so diligently striving for? It has evaporated beneath their feet. Support for membership of the EU was, by 2016, the only part of the old consensus still standing, and it collapsed entirely once sufficient numbers of Remainers accepted that there was little hope of overturning the referendum result. This year, the Liberal Democrats have appealed directly to ‘Remain’ voters, and have found themselves struggling to stay relevant in an election campaign that has moved on.

In 2017, the two main parties have achieved what once seemed impossible: playing to its ‘core vote’ whilst also making electoral gains. Labour’s campaign has been an unheralded triumph. A manifesto that promises large spending increases and government intervention in the economy at almost every level will enable them to hoover up votes from Liberal Democrats and the Greens on June 8^th. On the right, Theresa May’s programme offers Conservatives all they have dreamed of: hard Brexit, grammar schools, fox hunting and fiscal restraint. Her personal brand has been tarnished by wobbles over social care, but the wider message will still (probably) carry her to an increased majority.

Both platforms have done more than simply challenge the old political consensus: they have buried it. Labour may change its leader after this election, but they will certainly maintain the political course that he has set. Meanwhile, Cameronites in the Conservative Party are on the way to becoming as rare a breed as Labour’s ‘Blairites’: when Theresa May sacked George Osborne last year, she reportedly advised him to spend some time getting to know Conservative voters before returning to the political fray. Instead, he has become the editor of the largest newspaper in London, a city which remains a sturdy outpost of the old consensus, but is suddenly perplexed to find itself disregarded by the provinces: an enclave, rather than a hub.

As the process of leaving the European Union proves to be more intricate, more painful and more embarrassing than voters have calculated, the positions adopted now will harden further: scapegoats will be demanded, and unrealistic goals set. But this election may yet only mark the transformation, rather than the death, of Liberal Britain. If liberalism can move from orthodoxy to insurgency, then it can still revive the country’s prospects in the twenty-first century as surely as it did in the twentieth. Shorn of the constraints imposed by the need to maintain a non-existent consensus, liberalism can regain its self-confidence and assertiveness, and reclaim support from across the political spectrum. Macron points the way: en marche!