Why the vote should be for Remain tomorrow

Shortly after the 1975 referendum in which Britons had voted overwhelmingly to remain in the European Union (then the European Economic Community) I spoke to an old friend of my parents on his reasons for his pro-European vote.

On the face of it, Wilfred Heggadon was an unexpected recruit to the European cause – a lifelong Conservative and a farmer at a time when the European Common Agricultural Policy was one of the most contentious issues on the national agenda.

His answer to me was simple and compelling: “I have lived through two world wars and I have no wish to see a third”.

Over many years since, whenever people have asked me: What has the European Union ever achieved? I have always answered first and foremost that since it has existed, no war has been fought within its borders.

This has often been greeted with incredulity. I have been mocked, told that the European peace since 1945 had nothing to do with the EU, that it was just the natural order of things.

Then I have invited them to consider the European situation before 1945 – World Wars II and I, the Franco-Prussian War, the Crimean War, the revolutions of 1848, the Napoleonic wars, the War of the Spanish Succession, the 30 Years War, the 100 Years War, back to the days of the Roman Empire.

Europe was ravaged by conflict, millions died, millions more lived in misery as the armies of one would-be conqueror after another tramped back and forth, burning cities, ruining crops, opening the continent to famine and disease. 

As Europe entered the 20^th century the problems grew even worse. The nationalistic fervour of a few kings and potentates allowed the continent to sleepwalk into World War I, the most destructive war in history. The foolish triumphalism of the victorious nations at the Treaty of Versailles made World War II inevitable.

I have heard Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill quoted by those who think we should still be fighting on the beaches, but here is what Churchill actually said in a speech in Zurich,  just over a year after World War II had ended, in which he laid out his solution for a lasting peace: 

“Yet all the while there is a remedy which, if it were generally and spontaneously adopted, would as if by a miracle transform the whole scene, and would in a few years make all Europe, or the greater part of it, as free and as happy as Switzerland is today.

“What is this sovereign remedy?

It is to re-create the European Family, or as much of it as we can, and provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom.

“We must build a kind of United States of Europe.

“In this way only will hundreds of millions of toilers be able to regain the simple joys and hopes which make life worth living.”

It is hard to go to war when you are sitting around the same table.

The European experiment is still a work in progress and far from perfect, but it is so much better than the alternatives.

The choice is to strive to improve it or to give up and walk away. For all our sakes vote Remain tomorrow.