Why Great Britain is in Europe

The arguments for and against Europe are ferocious, and the assumed benefits of a future out of Europe are unknown. But we  must not forget one of the major reasons for the formation of the European Union in its various guises was to prevent a European war on a more catastrophic level. How can people so easily forget the horrors of war? How can can people be so complacent that everything will be ok on our little island. An island utterly dependent on trade to feed us for some 200 years? War has been one of the continuing themes in Europe for over 1000 years and our oasis of relative peace for the last 70 years is rare and precious. 

So let me remind you of recent history and the legacy that lies around us. One of my ancestors, a veteran of Waterloo and the Napoleonic wars, would tell you how deadly that war was. As would the French prisoners of war who were put to work on the farms of West Wight. And don't forget the cost to ordinary people of the coastal defences around the island, including the Solent forts.
The wars of the later 18th century within Europe were regular and bloody while Victorian Britain prospered in relative peace. Then we come onto the world wars of the 20th Century. the death of so many people, the destruction of so much infrastructure and the debt incurred. For Britain the cost in people housing and money damaged the country for generations and led to a decline that has only been reversed in my adult life. If you look around the island you can see the fortifications and radar structures of those years and there are still many people who remember fatal air raids such as in East Cowes and Brighstone.

If you think that war and all its negative results cannot come back let me remind you of wars and anarchy from democracies descending into dictatorships and those of collapsing dictatorships. Germany in the 20 and 30s, Spain and Portugal from the 30s to the 70s and the old Yugoslavia in the 1990s. More recently in the old Soviet Union in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova we see a Russia controlled by one man dismembering states, killing thousands of people, and delivering hideous destruction.

Within Europe the UK push for EU membership for the former Soviet controlled countries in Poland, Hungry, SW Europe and the Baltics has helped steady those countries and support their emergence towards stable democracies. You are misguided at best if you think that conflict cannot happen again in Europe. 

Those who believe that turning on our back on Europe and withdrawing from direct influence and support of the many countries within the European family is a good idea, who think that a collective approach to European security and democracy is unnecessary, who are not fully aware of how critical a prosperous Europe is to our security, to our democracy and our way of life need to think again.