The language used to discuss mainland Europeans in the media has been worrying. For me, they are part of an extended family. After all, we share the same genes. We united in the mid-twentieth century to destroy fascist dictatorships. We compete in sport - football (both codes) and horse-racing come to mind. Over centuries, we have exchanged folk-tales and literary tropes. Yet people making the short trip across (or under) the water are routinely described as "immigrants" or "tourists".
This was exemplified by Conservative Security Minister Ben Wallace in a recent interview. He claimed that "under the government’s hoped-for bespoke security deal with the EU, Britain’s security would increase because of freedom to impose tighter border controls to exclude terror suspects" as if continental Europeans presented a peculiar terrorist threat. (The quotation is from a newspaper interview, but Wallace said very much the same thing on Radio 4 during the week.) We all know that by far the greatest terrorist danger is home-grown, regrettably from descendants of settlers from the Commonwealth. Other terrorist attacks on British soil have come from Russia, a non-EU nation but one with which the City of London has worryingly close links, which will no doubt strengthen in a post-Brexit Britain.
This is not the time to demonise other EU nations, but to strengthen cooperation over terrorism and cross-border crime generally. This cooperation is not as good as it should be - witness the failures to exchange information between France and Belgium, and even within Belgium - and it can only become worse if the UK withdraws from active participation.
No comments:
Post a Comment