Brown Study: History and Europe

Brown Study: History and Europe

I have been watching Gordon Brown’s masterful speech, and I am certain that unlike the Tony Blairs of this world, he is passionate and sincere about the case to remain in Europe. If you don’t think so, I suggest you read “Courage: Eight Portraits”.

Watch the video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPX9MLALjAE

Here’s the text:

‘I’m walking through the ruins at Coventry Cathedral, bombed and destroyed by Nazi warplanes 70 years ago, and now painstakingly and lovingly maintained, as a monument to wars that we’ve left behind, and to the sanctuary of peace.

“And just think of it. For a thousand years and more, the nations of Europe at war with each other – murdering and maiming each other.”

“In every century but this one, the nations of Europe vying for supremacy. In every generation but this one, our people dying.”

“And now, a Europe at peace. A Europe where decisions are made by dialogue, discussion and debate. A Europe where the only battle is the battle of ideas.”

“A Europe where we fight with arguments and not with armaments. A Europe that is at peace because of What Britain did to establish freedom across the whole of the continent.”

“And we are the British people who have Europe the greatest statement of human rights, based on British values, driven forward by British experience, and now no country can enter the European Union without subscribing to these values.”

“And we are the British people who stood shoulder to shoulder with the peoples of eastern Europe when Soviet tanks rolled in said that they too were welcome into the European Union, if they subscribed to democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”

“And the Europe that we’re creating is not simply a marketplace. It is a community, where every single worker has rights to holiday pay, a maximum working week, so that the good employer cannot be undercut by the bad, and the bad by the worst in a race to the bottom.”

“And we shouldn’t just be a member of the European Union. We should be a leader of the European Union.”

“Soon we will be the strongest economy in Europe. The stronger nations look to us for leadership.”

“And what message would we send to the rest of the world if we, the British people, the most internationally-minded of all, were to walk away from our nearest neighbours?”

“We should be leading in Europe, and not leaving it.’”

As Adam Bager comments

“Gordon Brown has intervened in the Brexit debate with an impressive and passionate speech made from the ruins of Coventry Cathedral (preserved as a memorial to the bomb damage of the Second World War – ‘Nazi’ bombing, he is careful to say, not ‘German’ bombing).”

“What’s impressive is that he makes the POSITIVE arguments that the campaign has so far lacked. An audience laughed the other day when Cameron made the ‘World War Three’ claims, but the point about peace in Europe is an important one, and whereas Cameron made it ineptly, here in this video Gordon Brown makes it persuasively and movingly.”