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When we talk about the founders of the European Union, we quote Robert Schumann or Jean Monnet, who even gave their name to the official buildings of the Community Administration, but we tend to forget one of the Most important: the British Winston Churchill, although one the building also has its name. In 1946, in Zurich, the former Conservative Prime Minister had declared that "if Europe could unite to enjoy its common heritage, its prosperity and happiness would have no limit" , in a speech in which he spoke about the "United States of America, Europe". But earlier, at the beginning of the Second World War, Churchill had led an even more important initiative from a European point of view: he wanted the French and the British to share the same nationality. His idea was based on the notion that principles such as democracy and freedom were more powerful than any flag, the same thought that set in motion the union.
However, the conservative politician is also a symbol of distance The British want to mark with the continent, the idea defended by broad strata of society that the British are different from the rest of the Europeans. It is no coincidence that the films about the character of Churchill, or the withdrawal of Dunkirk in 1940, have multiplied since Brexit. The United Kingdom has always struggled between these two souls: the image that it wants to be built as a country, with the haze in the channel that leaves the continent isolated, and the stubborn reality that shows that the United Kingdom is an inseparable part of Europe, either the defenders of Brexit want it or not
No country is an island, not even geographically. As the historian David Edgerton, author of The Ascent and the Fall of the British Nation ("The rise and fall of the British nation") wrote "In 1900, the United Kingdom was a very cosmopolitan place.It was full of European immigrants.The food came from all over the world and British coal was vital for the Baltic and Mediterranean countries.London, on the other hand depended on iron from Sweden and North Africa, their eggs and their bacon came from Denmark and Holland, and their newspapers were printed on Scandinavian paper ". What Edgerton describes is a union before the Union.
There have always been pro-Europeans, many more in the Labor Party, and anti-Europeans, especially among the conservatives and the powerful tabloid press- The Sun and The Daily Mail did more than anyone to prevent the UK from entering Europe. But these two camps have never been defined solely for ideological reasons and the transfer between them has always been constant, as was the case with Margaret Thatcher. It is besides a conservative Prime Minister, Edward Heath, who signed the Treaty of Accession to the European Union, signed in 1973 and ratified by a large majority at the end of the year. a referendum in 1975. But everyone, including Europeans, likes to emphasize the differences. The facts, however, speak much louder: the United Kingdom is part of the history of the continent and is an additional European country, not only geographically and economically, but also politically.
Romanized – although it cost, it is true – and its capital is a legacy of Rome, no matter how much they worship the Celtic Queen Boudica, who rose up against the Roman legions, as a monument to Westminster shows it in the heart of London's power. The Celts, fed by a strange British nationalism rooted in prehistory and to which the British Museum devoted a great exhibition four years ago, form a people that still hides many mysteries, but about which there is a certainty: they are settled in a very important part of Europe at the Iron Age, including the British Isles.
Hundred Years War
The Bayeux tapestry, named after the French city in which it is kept, tells the story of the conquest. Norman from England, while a tour of the center of France reveals that there are as many French and British castles as a product of the Hundred Years War, as the English kings controlled a significant part of French territory. When the French Protestants, the Huguenots, fled persecution, they settled in England, like many refugees of revolutionary violence or pogroms of the Russian empire. Not to mention the crucial role of England in the defeat of Napoleon. Even Victor Hugo wrote Les Misérables on the territory of His Majesty. And of course, the British fought in both world wars of the twentieth century and thousands of their soldiers, a whole generation, are buried in the fields of Flanders.
Europe: the rock of Gibraltar, which the British won in the Treaty of Utrecht and resisted different seats in the 18th century. This is not what happened in Menorca, which was also British, but which was recovered by Spain. The late British historian John Julius Norwich recounts in his essay The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean ("The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean"), as King George III of the Kingdom The UK is not very happy about the change and writes in a letter: "I would have loved Menorca or both Florida and Guadalupe more than this proud fortress, in my opinion source of another war, or at least a constant latent enmity. " He knew that at the time, as today, the place of the United Kingdom was in the world and, in particular, among the other European nations with which, as at present, he was obliged to understand.
Errata
a first version, it was not said that a building of the European Parliament bears the name of Winston Churchill.
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