As we mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day with bunting and street parties, prayers and speeches, grainy footage and crackly sounds from a lifetime ago it’s almost impossible to imagine what it meant then. The end to almost six years of war that had cost millions of lives, destroyed homes, families, and cities and brought huge suffering to so many.
Most of us have been fortunate to live our whole lives in a time of peace, or at least the absence of a conflict such as that war. Wars are in other counties – Sudan, Gaza, the DRC, Yemen and now between India and Pakistan. Except they’re not, the war in Ukraine has been going on for over three years – more than ten if you consider Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 as the real start of the conflict.
Beyond the horror of tanks, guns, explosives and drone attacks other wars are raging – against truth, against civil society and the security of national infrastructure and institutions. We can’t always identify the enemy which could be Russia, Iran, China or rogue players in it for money and the kicks of causing havoc. The days of Dad’s Army and the Dunkirk spirit are long gone and after the chaos of Covid, don’t hold your breath on anyone obeying orders to ‘turn that bloody light out’.
With Trump and the instability he’s brought, not just to the White House but the world over, Putin waiting it out in Moscow, helping to unravel a little bit more every now and then, China and India on manoeuvres and the Middle East teetering on the thinnest of knife edges, anyone with any sense must recognise that Britian’s future security lies with Europe.
Brexit has been a disaster on so many levels but the screeching accusations of those who think closer ties with Europe are an affront to democracy ring even more hollow when faced with the reality of not just what we’ve lost but what we need to try and shore up some resilience, security and unity against the threats that face us.
Keir Starmer has succeeded in mending fences with the EU to some extent but if he really wants to mark VE Day ahead of the European summit later this month, he should be loud and clear that our future prosperity and security lies with our European partners. Yes, it will annoy some both in and outside the Labour party. It’ll provoke the right-wing press, the Tories and Reform into apoplectic fury – while they wave their union flags and wallow in nostalgic yearning for a Churchill while conveniently forgetting what they got with the Winston wannabe Boris Johnson.
In the eighty years since VE Day, much has changed but the threat of conflict, instability and chaos has grown. Commemorate Victory in Europe but look to a Future in Europe. It’s brighter than the orange one.
