LONDON LETTER FEBRUARY 2018 OF BREXIT, CHURCHILL AND HISTORY IN THE MOVIES.

There is a scene in Robert Bolt’s play ‘A Man for all Seasons,’ when Thomas More is engaged in a dialogue with William Roper who insists he would cut down every law in England to get at the Devil; More responds, -

“Thomas More: ...And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned around on you--where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast--man's laws, not God's--and if you cut them down...d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.”

I have thought a great deal about the scene recently when witnessing what can only be described as the blind fanaticism of Brexiteers such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, Liam Fox or Michael Gove. They would cut down any obstacle, legal, constitutional, ethical, that stood in the way of their imagined holy grail of severing all connections with the European Union. They forget that they have no exclusive monopoly on power and that having eroded all the breaks on the exercise of arbitrary power they will have no defences left when others seek to exercise such power against them and their interests. For make no mistake there are plenty of those on both the left and right who will be more than willing to take advantage of such a barren landscape.

Living through the whole Brexit nightmare makes me realise something of how those who knew precisely where appeasement was leading in the 1930’s but had to watch powerlessly as the government seized every opportunity to capitulate to Hitler demands.

We don’t learn very much from history, but what we do learn tends to be distorted by current concerns. In truth, I think there is no historical parallel for what is currently happening. A bunch of hapless incompetents in a government intent on driving through a policy that will do irreparable damage to the international standing and economic well-being of this country. History in this way can be perceived as a great experiment that tests the limit of human folly, we are the guinea pigs in the laboratory.

Have watched several films about Churchill recently, none of them completely historically accurate, some by a considerable margin. To highlight just a few incidences, Churchill did not pace around the floor of the House of Commons when making his speeches, nor did MPs break into applause. King George VI was not an opponent of appeasement, but rather an ardent supporter. The role of the little ships at Dunkirk was peripheral to that of the Royal Navy and the US destroyers for bases deal was a bad one from a British perspective, having a psychological value much greater than any practical worth, -  many of the destroyers were barely seaworthy.

Does any of this matter? I think some of it does. To present King George VI as a being prescient about the failure of appeasement and the inevitability of war, as does 'The Kings Speech,' goes beyond merely making the film more interesting or dramatic and steps over a boundary into the realm of propaganda. Smaller alterations to the historical record can usually be put down to poetic licence, movies, after all, are not historical textbooks. Some errors, however, can be irritating and clearly put down to poor research.

Brian Cox as Winston Churchill

Two current films dealing with the Churchill phenomena, indeed mythology, are ‘Churchill,’ with Brian Cox in the title role, and ‘Darkest Hour’ starring Gary Oldman as Churchill. Of the two it is the latter that has attracted the most attention and is indeed the better of the films. Cox’s Churchill, haunted by memories of Gallipoli, nervous and dithering in the run up to D Day, presents an altogether less substantial figure than the one portrayed by Oldman. Was Churchill this paralysed in the run-up to the invasion of Normandy? Certainly, Churchill’s reluctance to open the second Front across the channel, seeking instead a ‘soft underbelly’ in the form of  Italy as an alternative, is well documented. This is certainly not the Churchill of popular legend but part of a more revisionist approach to the wartime leader.

 ‘Darkest Hour,’ dealing with the early days of Churchill’s premiership seems closer to the actual record of events, not least in portraying the distrust with which Churchill was viewed by the King, and Conservative party, especially Halifax and Chamberlain. This led to Halifax scheming to undermine Churchill and explore peace terms through the invention of Mussolini. All of this is portrayed in the film and provides the real drama of May 1940. That the producers of the film then chose to insert a scene set in a tube carriage, a scene that can only be described as surreal, is extraordinary. Real drama no longer it seems enough, it requires spicing up a bit.

Churchill, like Hitler, has now become just as much a fictional character as Hamlet, Lear, or Othello,  with major actors [stars] queuing up to display their ‘take’ on the role.*

The Blitz Experience

All this nostalgia for a past now so heavily encrusted with myth as to be barely discernible is a symptom of a retarded society and can feel like living in a dusty room with Vera Lynn playing on a loop and ‘authentic’ sounds of the blitz providing a backdrop. Which brings me back full circle to Brexit.

Perhaps if any historical parallels exist we need to go back to Ancient Rome and the wilful destruction of Roman and Greek culture by the fanatical Christians. For Brexit is a jealous god and one must worship none but he.

*For what it is worth my favourite portrayal