“be[ing] a Nazi province” was preferable to becoming a British dominion. Philippe Pétain, a leader of the pro-armistice group, called union “fusion with a corpse”.
Craig at Is the BBC Biased? reports on a David Keighley News-Watch piece on Nick Robinson’s claim that Churchill was the father of the European Union which give us a lot more detail about what went on in 1940….David Keighley concludes….
[Robinson] doctored some of the original commentary to make it fit with EU’s hagiography about its formation….It is deeply troubling that he should project such bias, at any time – but especially during the EU referendum. It seems that he deliberately chose to amplify the ‘Churchill is father of European unity’ concept.
I thought, well why not just Google it and see just how easy it is to find out about the plan. Something Nick Robinson could have done with ease……and I came up with a Wikipedia article that gives an indepth look at how the Anglo-French union came about…and you know what, it wasn’t as Robinson said here…
There’s one interview we haven’t got, it’s with the man who in many ways was the father of a united Europe. No, he wasn’t a Frenchman, he wasn’t a German, he wasn’t a Belgian, he was, in fact, the British Bulldog himself, Winston Churchill. In the desperate days of June 1940, Britain’s new wartime leader’s first instinct was to go for full political union, quite unthinkable today. Churchill’s plan, in a last-ditch effort to stop France falling to the Nazis, was that Britain and France would become a single country, an indissoluble union with one war cabinet running defence and the economy on both sides of the Channel. The British Cabinet backed it, but with one prophetic exception, they simply couldn’t stomach the idea of a single currency. Days later France fell, and with it, at that stage, the idea of political union.
Trouble is, it wasn’t Churchill’s plan, he had little to do with drawing it up…it was Frenchman Jean Monnet’s plan and as for indissoluble…it was only for the duration of the war as the British declaration made clear.
The EU itself is pretty clear who is to blame…
Jean Monnet is seen as the founding father of the Community which has been developing and growing since 1950 from principles and plans he defined and began to put into practice.
We have inherited Jean Monnet’s idea and it is up to us to press ahead with the historic task of building Europe.
A single Cabinet, a single army, a single nation’
In the spring of 1940, after the defeat of General Weygand’s troops, what counted most for Monnet was to ensure that the allied democracies did not break ranks in the face of the enemy. He arrived in London a few days before General de Gaulle and drafted a plan for an indissoluble Franco-British Union, a true merger of the two nations, for de Gaulle, the British Government and the French authorities in refuge in Bordeaux. The idea was to create a psychological shock and encourage the French army to get out of enemy reach and the French navy to join up with British forces and carry on the fight.
Robinson doesn’t for some reason tell us that in 1956 the french proposed yet another union…this time by Mollet not Monnet…. ‘French Prime Minister Guy Mollet proposed a union between the United Kingdom and the French Union with Elizabeth II as head of state and a common citizenship. As an alternative, Mollet proposed that France join the Commonwealth.’ British Prime Minister Anthony Eden rejected both proposals.
Ironically it was the BBC that rediscovered this proposal... The Mollet proposal was first made public in the United Kingdom on 15 January 2007 through an article by Mike Thomson published on the BBC News website…..and the French reaction in 2007?….French journalist Christine Clerc asked former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua (Gaullist) about Mollet’s 1956 proposal. Pasqua answered, “if his demand had been made official, Mollet would have been brought to trial for high treason“
Guess Robinson picked and chose bits of history to suit a particular narrative…that of Churchill being very pro-European Union….Robinson tells us the French rejected the proposal but not just how hostile the French cabinet’s reaction was to the proposal in 1940 ...that “be[ing] a Nazi province” was preferable to becoming a British dominion. Philippe Pétain, a leader of the pro-armistice group, called union “fusion with a corpse”.
So it seems, other than for a couple of renegade Frenchman, a European Union avec Les Rosbifs wasn’t on the books except as a wartime expedient to try and keep the French on board. Guess no one was really keen on the EU then, least of all Churchill. Something Nick Robinson could easily have found out if he didn’t know already, and hard to believe he didn’t. Therefore we must conclude he was trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the BBC audience and con them into following in what Robinson tells us are Churchill’s footsteps and vote for further integration into the EU…as a remain vote would inevitably be.
Here is the Wikipedia entry for the Anglo-French agreement from 1940:
World War II (1940)
In December 1939 Jean Monnet of the French Economic Mission in London became the head of the Anglo-French Coordinating Committee, which coordinated joint planning of the two countries’ wartime economies. The Frenchman hoped for a postwar United States of Europe and saw an Anglo-French political union as a step toward his goal. He discussed the idea with Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill’s assistant Desmond Morton, and other British officials.[1]
In June 1940, French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud’s government faced imminent defeat in the Battle of France. In March they and the British had agreed that neither country would seek a separate peace with Nazi Germany. The French cabinet on 15 June voted to ask Germany for the terms of an armistice. Reynaud, who wished to continue the war from North Africa, was forced to submit the proposal to Churchill’s War Cabinet. He claimed that he would have to resign if the British were to reject the proposal.[1]
The British opposed a French surrender, and in particular the possible loss of the French Navy to the Germans, and so sought to keep Reynaud in office. On 14 June British diplomat Robert Vansittart and Morton wrote with Monnet and his deputy René Pleven a draft “Franco-British Union” proposal. They hoped that such a union would help Reynaud persuade his cabinet to continue the war from North Africa, but Churchill was skeptical when on 15 June the British War Cabinet discussed the proposal and a similar one from Secretary of State for India Leo Amery. On the morning of 16 June, the War Cabinet agreed to the French armistice request on the condition that the French fleet sail to British harbors. This disappointed Reynaud, who had hoped to use a British rejection to persuade his cabinet to continue to fight.[1]
Reynaud supporter Charles de Gaulle had arrived in London earlier that day, however, and Monnet told him about the proposed union.[1] De Gaulle convinced Churchill that “some dramatic move was essential to give Reynaud the support which he needed to keep his Government in the war”.[2] The Frenchman then called Reynaud and told him that the British prime minister proposed a union between their countries, an idea which Reynaud immediately supported. De Gaulle, Monnet, Vansittart, and Pleven quickly agreed to a document proclaiming a joint citizenship, foreign trade, currency, war cabinet, and military command. Churchill withdrew the armistice approval, and at 3 p.m. the War Cabinet met again to consider the union document. Despite the radical nature of the proposal, Churchill and the ministers recognized the need for a dramatic act to encourage the French and reinforce Reynaud’s support within his cabinet before it met again at 5pm.[1]
The final “Declaration of union” approved by the British War Cabinet stated that[1]
France and Great Britain shall no longer be two nations, but one Franco-British Union. The constitution of the Union will provide for joint organs of defence, foreign, financial and economic policies. Every citizen of France will enjoy immediately citizenship of Great Britain, every British subject will become a citizen of France.
Churchill and De Gaulle called Reynaud to tell him about the document, and they arranged for a joint meeting of the two governments in Concarneau the next day. The declaration immediately succeeded in its goal of encouraging Reynaud, who saw the union as the only alternative to surrender and who could now cite the British rejection of the armistice.[1]
Other French leaders were less enthusiastic, however. At the 5 p.m. cabinet meeting, many called it a British “last minute plan” to steal its colonies, and said that “be[ing] a Nazi province” was preferable to becoming a British dominion. Philippe Pétain, a leader of the pro-armistice group, called union “fusion with a corpse”. While President Albert Lebrun and some others were supportive, the cabinet’s opposition stunned Reynaud. He resigned that evening without taking a formal vote on the union or an armistice, and later called the failure of the union the “greatest disappointment of my political career”.[1]
Reynaud had erred, however, by conflating opposition to the union—which a majority of the cabinet almost certainly opposed—with support for an armistice, which it almost certainly did not. If the proposal had been made a few days earlier, instead of the 16th when the French only had hours to decide between armistice and North Africa, Reynaud’s cabinet might have considered it more carefully.[1]
Pétain formed a new government that evening, which immediately decided to ask Germany for armistice terms. The British canceled their plans to travel to Concarneau.
Nick Robinson knew exactly what happened and knew exactly what he was doing. It should be of no surprise though because the Al Beeb have long ceased being a reporter of unadulterated news/facts. From the people they employ to rewrite history, to the useless smug as f%*k sofa jockey’s lying their way through utter bullshit propaganda for 24 bloody hrs a day! The Al Beeb is nothing more than ‘The Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda’ for the devious, traitorous left. Absolutely everything they produce or communicate is to mislead, create false narrative or brainwash it’s audience. Scumbags!!!
Can`t say that I have too much of a problem with this one.
First heard of the bizarre proposal a few years ago-and i the terrors of 1940,Churchill and his advisers were perfectly entitled to come up with anything to save both ourselves and the French
How true it all is, how close we came to it?…for the birds-because Paris fell soon afterwards so became just a detail in history.
Robinson in fact does us a favour in including Jean Monnets role in this one-like Schuman and Gaspari, these EU evil doers pioneered the pretence of a “coal and steel” market-but only as a cynical first step to a long planned political union, thereby removing nation states by deceit…for nobody in Europe would ever have voted their nations and currencies away.
Never have-never will-but there again, the`y ve never been asked to do so…it`s always salami slicing and a slow boiling for the citizens until they`re done.
Robinson only reminds us with Monnet-Heath and Jenkins etc-that the EU has been a conspiracy against the people of Europe-and a stepping stone to international fascism, disguised as a diverse socialist federation of the enlightened.
His programme was, I think, pretty good-but how sad that he`s got no new talking heads who count as yet…if he`s not got Lawson and Howe, Hain and Miliband etc admitting about the economic stitch up, the fall of Mrs Thatcher, the Delors capture of the Labour Party and the migrant fiddles to give a new electorate reliant on benefits, Labour patronage and cheap labour for the CBI-then he`s been a lazy sod, using old stock from 1996.
That would be poor….Lisbon, Amsterdam and refusing referenda results need including in part two surely-but will he do so?
PS I`ve used the EUrine notion a lot, reckon it`s mine-but I prefer Remainiac now….and hope “warmon(c/o Hitchens P) is a good one for the green scum.
“Robinson in fact does us a favour in including Jean Monnets role in this one-like Schuman and Gaspari, these EU evil doers pioneered the pretence of a “coal and steel” market-but only as a cynical first step to a long planned political union, thereby removing nation states by deceit…for nobody in Europe would ever have voted their nations and currencies away.”.
Chris, the EU has made its attitude to democracy very clear.
If the British people vote the wrong way on 23rd they’ll never need to vote again.
Ah! Here we go. I knew it… BBC EU Referendum “Reality Check”.
It should be renamed BBC EU Referendum Cherry-Picked Reality Check.
Funnily enough, I have been argu… debating with a number of pro-EU activists on my own blog/YouTube and have discovered that the EU has nothing to do with the last war and everything to do with Tsar Alexander, in the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle of 1818.
I’m not sure why EU advocates are so keen to disassociate the EU with WWII, but I guess it is because – as we all know – the post-war EU project has already failed, so they need to streeeetch the history of the EU back to more historically and fashionably ‘glamorous’ times.
Nick Robinson is your typical BBC political journalist; spends lots of time with politicians, spends little time with the people of Britain. His knowledge is that of politicians – not of East Midlands furniture factory workers (for example).
Notice how he looks happy to visit the white cliffs of Dover [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35996621]. That in itself is a reminder of the last world war and a warning! PROJECT FEAR! Stay in the EU and we won’t have any more wars.
But how I would love to see him squirm standing outside Sneinton Library in Nottingham (for example) where east Europeans congregate to get drunk and end up intimidating every passer-by. (Even the library staff need to call the police on occasion before they can leave the building.)
As Nick ‘Politically Shortsighted’ Robinson (or is he longsighted?) writes: “There can be no facts about the future, only predictions. – Having said that, though, there are some facts when it comes to the past.”
OK Nick, what about “the present”?
Where are the facts about the present? Why can’t we talk about diminishing wages? Why can’t we talk about the strain on the NHS? – Not only the strain on the NHS but the lack of accountability of those foreigners using it? Why can’t we talk about the welfare benefits paid to migrants and how many ‘tax pounds’ the government needs to receive in order to pay ‘welfare pounds’ to a migrant who might have arrived in the country just a year ago.
The usual excuse is ‘they pay their taxes therefore…‘ or ‘there are a million Brits living elsewhere in the EU‘.
Yes, there are a million Brits living in the EU, but they are not economic migrants! They take money with them. I’m sure Spain will suffer if we vote to leave, therefore Spain – for all the threats of closing the border with Gibraltar – will come to their senses very quickly and realise they need us more than we need them. Now, that’s a FACT. I’ll say no more than that.
Fuck the EU.
Yes, there are a million Brits living in the EU, but they are not economic migrants!
There may be or there may not. Its not even an estimate its pure guesswork. They are never counted!
But bear in mind too most of these Brits will come back. they are not immigrants, they are ex pats, only working in the Eu for a few years.
What we do know is that there are well over a million EUers in Britain and most want to stay for ever.
Nope, I’m talking about the pensioners. There are a million British pensioners living abroad in the EU. They are not working and are living very well from their pension payments. And quite right too!
“Yes, there are a million Brits living in the EU, but they are not economic migrants! They take money with them..”
From my experience of Normandy over the last 25 or so years (the outlaws live there) there are plenty crawling back when they are going to cost plenty.
Strangely as you pay for your bed and board in French hospitals, and for the ambulance to get you you there, failing health in France can still be costly. Also many do not seem to want to stay when the other half passes on.
A few years ago to reduce the effect of freeloading Brits on their health service they changed the rules such that if you went to live in France below their pension age and did not work you had to have private insurance
So having helped hide the true nature of immigration, their return now is helping to effectively swell the numbers.
Unfortunately with the plunge of the £ to the Euro under Gordon Brown the attraction of living there reduced such that when the ex-pats come to try to sell their quaint rural properties there is little demand from the U.K., or locally, and in the meanwhile U.K. prices have moved ahead.
The good life may turn a little sour in time.
Great post Edward. You have stated clear, completely factual and to the point retorts to the so called ‘key reasons’ for staying in the EU. You aren’t using “could” “possibly” or other variable future statements that the EUthanizer’s have to use to scare people into staying.
The Al Beeb and Gravy train luvvies have to push the economic arguments because it’s the only topic which is completely variable and depends on an infinite number of factors. Everything else that effects us all on here is sovereignty based. They can’t debate those topics so are utterly focused on scaremongering with financials. Having full control of that means we are in control of our destiny. Its as simple as that.
The EU was never about economics, never, as in never, and nor was the zero, oops Euro. It was dreamed up by a “British” jobsworth working in Europe between the wars. He wrote a memo which he eventually shared with Monnet whilst they were both serving at the League of Nations, another joke organisation.
What makes me especially angry is the meme being put about by the pro EUers that its important that the young vote because the fact that they are young means their vote counts more than that of older people.
I guess in the sense that withdrawal will never be possible again, though unmentioned, does add an element of truth to this otherwise disgustingly distorted take on democracy!
The Labour Party are all for lowering the voting age to 16. As I have said before, it is easier to indoctrinate young people with bullshit. That’s why Sunday School exists.
Christians – Socialists – they all want a piece of the naïve pie.
WAKE UP YOU IDIOTS TO THE HYPOCRISY!
Aerfen,
I wonder if they would say the same thing if young people were more likely to vote to leave ?
As a whole, young people are idealistic and full of hope and dreams for a fantasist world future. They have mostly been sheltered from reality and therefore base their ‘opinion’ from the relentless brainwashing received by the state and MSM. Young people have not experienced the reality of life where they realise that our leaders are lying, traitorous, devious scumbags who are only interested in protecting their own interests and are so desperate to stay in power they will say lie after lie to achieve it.
People over the age of 30 realise what the EU really is and base their opinion on how this dictatorship effects their own lives and not by listening to fantasist rhetoric. Of course the EUthanizer’s are desperate for young people to vote because the young haven’t been fucked over by them yet… But they will… We all will if we do not vote out
The young people of 1975 voted to stay in , grew older and wiser and now want out . The young of 2016 will grow older and wiser and want out in forty years time . And the young in forty years time may want to remain in the EU but grow older and wiser and want out forty years from that .
Beeboids don’t think people age , they think young people are like Petert Pan .
If, as seems quite possible, this country votes to be led to the slaughter like so many sheep, it will be because Project Fear has triumphed and it will have done so because of the lies told by the political class and the way they have been propagandised by the media – notably the BBC, but also Sky.
If this happens, those in favour of Brexit will have every right to cry ‘fix’ – because a fix is what it will surely have been – a stitch-up by members of the small minority that benefits from EU membership. Morally, Brexiters will have every right to resort to whatever tactics they see fit to use because this referendum will have been stolen.
Next time, we should play by their rules.
GC ,
“Next time ” ?
Well, as I say, Grant, I have a feeling Project Fear may triumph. But I also think those of us who want out of this mess will never give up.
GC,
Yes, never give up, if the coming EU police state allows us. The hope is that the EU will collapse anyway eventually, but if we are in, we shall get dragged down in the dying throes. If we are out, we shall have some measure of protection. So far as the referendum is concerned, wouldn’t it be ironic if the postal votes swing it ?
I am still entitled to vote and am in UK and will be here on 23 June. I just need to decide which way to vote. LOL !
There is mention above the existence of ex-pats living in the EU. I have property in France & spend half the year there. As an artist my property is a studio where I work, then I bring the finished paintings back to England to be shown in my galleries here.
Leaving the EU could inconvenience me, I remember the nightmare of documentation I had to get just to be legally living in Italy (where I was in the 1980s); also the problems of taking art across national borders, I had to hide my canvases in plastic drainpipes. Post 1992 things got a lot easier.
However in June I am going to vote to leave the EU. The very question is bigger than my own situation. If there’s Brexit I expect things to be less easy, though I hope any renegotiation will take into account Brits living abroad & their status quo re. reciprocal emergency medical treatment etc.
No, I will vote to leave because I believe Britain must leave an outdated undemocratic behemoth of an institution. I would be delighted to be showing my passport at every frontier if I think it will make us all safer, I would put up with all the ridiculous bureaucracy again if I knew Britain was free of Brussels. I would even imagine with delight the whole thing crumbling & nation states regaining their individuality & freedom again.
Sorry this is nothing to do with BBC bias. But the message we get on the Beeb tends to be for people to consider how the EU affects them individually. Ideally they should mention Britain’s future in twenty, fifty years time, a couple of years uncertainty & temporary financial downturn has got to be tolerated for an independent Britain (or just England) in the long-term future.
I love Europe & every nation’s individual culture, I would rejoice to see all of these countries finally liberated from the EU.
My family own property in southern Spain (Almeria – lovely province!), so I am also worried about the after-effects of a Brexit (such as – are the Spaniards going to start jizzing in my paella for being a Brit, and, if they do, how can I guarantee they haven’t been doing it in the past too?).
But here’s a ‘Reality Check’: If leaving the EU results in economic retaliation and political measures to make life difficult for ex-pats living in the EU or Brits who own property in the EU, then we will have made the right choice! The proof will be right there that the EU is made up of a bunch of career politicians who have no exposure to the harsh realities of the EU project and who get all mardy-mustard when they don’t get their own way.
We desperately need to call their bluff – exercise democracy, vote out, and expect a measured and respectful response from the EU. Will we get that?
Every Remain campaign threat about the economy and rising cost of goods and… well, nothing really… needs to be brought to book. We need to vote OUT to expose the truth. We need to send the message plain and clear that we do not give a shit about the economy as long as we get our country back!
Once we have our country back, the sky is the limit! And beyond!
If I were thinking of buying a property in Spain, I’d consider Seville, although it’s extremely hot in summer.
I have sympathy in particular for those who’ve retired to Spain but, realistically, the protection of those who have decided to leave the UK is not a valid reason for staying in the EU, harsh though it sounds.
I’d heard that, as things stand, Spain is not honouring the European Health Insurance arrangements in full but I have no evidence for this. With the Euro’s shortcomings, there’s no guarantee that expats in Spain will always be welcome if we stay.
I have to admit I, or my parents, have had no need to use the Spanish health system (touch wood) but from talking to other ex-pats there is no access to an English interpreter, unlike the NHS which has interpreters for just about every language you can imagine.
“there is no access to an English interpreter, unlike the NHS which has interpreters for just about every language you can imagine.”
And the same largesse is reflected in councils, civil service departments, everywhere.
That’s the way the money goes ……
Exactly!
Can you believe some of the libraries in Nottingham help migrants to fill in their welfare claims forms?
Another Reality Check.