BRITISH HISTORY THE STORY of
1st CENTURY BC - 17th CENTURY 1600-1644 » 17th CENTURY 1645-1699 »
Four crucial ideas emerge as Brits fight for freedom.
Not one to write in a heroic mode, Simon Schama rewards the reader with cultural details, and describes how Brits shaped the modern world. For UK readers: For US orders:
British historian Paul Johnson skewers tyrannies of all shapes and sizes. For UK orders: For US orders:
"Could not put this book down." An inside look at the struggle in Parliament to resist Maastricht. Not available from Amazon UK For US orders: |
In Prague, a young generation is free to live because Brits and Americans oppose the tyranny of Communism. Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, and Slovaks need the perseverance and support of Western democracies – and their own tremendous stamina and courage – to end fear with the triumph of hope. Photo: [email protected] BRITS FIGHT FOR FREEDOM World War II has just ended when the Communist Soviet Union grabs Eastern Europe, and stands poised to impose its oppressive rule on all Europe. 1946 WINSTON CHURCHILL ATTACKS COMMUNIST TYRANNY Winston Churchill once again comes to the defence of liberty, making his Iron Curtain speech at Fulton, Missouri, on 5 March 1946. He clearly condemns Communism as a murderous ideology bent on world domination, and asserts that the West must defend individual human freedom. See Winston Churchill, Going through Hell » 1947 INDIAN CITIZENS CREATE LARGEST DEMOCRACY IN WORLD Living simply and contemplatively, the British-educated Mahatma Gandhi has travelled around India, learning how Indians live and electrifying common Indians with the idea that justice demands fair wages and self-rule. He advocates the power of non-violence. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s he applies the principle of non-violent protest to India with unprecedented effect, because the British Government did not suppress him. (Hitler told the British Prime Minister that he would have had Gandhi killed.) The political and cultural cohesion of the Indian people is created in their struggle for independence. During the Second World War, the British Government imprisoned protestors, but returns to the negotiating table immediately after the war ends. Muslims in Indian demand the creation of their own state, Pakistan. After murderous riots in the north, the British Government agrees. India and Pakistan achieve independence, and go their own ways. India is now the most populous democracy on earth. Saddened by India's partition, Mahatma Gandhi does not celebrate India's independence on August 15, 1947, but millions of Indians do, and pay tribute to his wise and dauntless leadership. Within a year Gandhi will be assassinated, but the Republic of India goes on to become the world's largest democracy and a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. Photo: imagesoftheworld » 1948 BRITS AND ALLIES DEFY COMMUNISM, FREE WEST BERLIN In 1948 West Berlin is surrounded by the armies and territory controlled by the Soviet Union. Stalin, the Soviet Union's murderous ruler, blocks all rail lines, canals, and roads entering West Berlin. To keep the city alive, the Brits, Americans, and French fly in supplies day after day, and month after month. After eleven months Stalin gives in and reopens access to the city. 1950s - 1960s EAST AFRICANS CLAIM INDEPENDENCE, AND BRITS CONFIRM THEIR RIGHT TO BE FREE Since World War I Britain has been governing Trust Territories in East Africa. By the 1950s African peoples are calling for the right to grow coffee, fair representation in legislative councils, and an end to land enclosures. Forgetting their own hard-won history of liberty, the initial British reaction is not positive. But by the 1960s Britain agrees to the East African desire for independence: By 1963, Zanzibar and Tanganyika (uniting as Tanzania in 1964), Uganda, and Kenya have become independent, self-governing states. Their inheritance, if they choose to keep it, is the English language, democracy, and Common Law. 1940s - 1990s TREVOR HUDDLESTON AND MANY OTHERS WORK FOR FREEDOM FROM APARTHEID IN SOUTH AFRICA The anti-British, Nazi-sympathizing Nationalist government takes power in South Africa in 1948. Opposed to the British Commonwealth, they do not speak English, and view Britain's policies toward blacks as too liberal. The Nationalists rob black citizens of their voting rights, separate the races, and establish the morally monstrous machine of apartheid. Based on skin colour, apartheid debases black people. Rich in natural resources, and strategically located, South Africa can ignore the world's condemnation. A few courageous opponents in the South African Parliament continue to condemn apartheid, but the Nationalist Party bolsters its rule and racism. A gentle, friendly man, Father Trevor Huddleston, a monk of the Community of the Resurrection, ministers in the townships of Sophiatown and Orlando in South Africa in the 1940s. Appalled by the horror that apartheid wreaks on South Africans, he becomes a brave and powerful opponent. Nelson Mandela remembers him as the priest in cassock and large back hat who doffs his hat to his mother, a cleaning lady. In 1956 Huddleston pens an international bestseller, Naught for Your Comfort, that describes the horrors of aparatheid. He advocates economic sanctions against South Africa and a sports and cultural boycott. For the next thirty years, even while serving as bishop of Tanzania and Archbishop of the Indian Ocean, he continues to press for the end of apartheid, and raises money for its victims. South Africa becomes a pariah. The courage of Africans such as Mandela, who resist apartheid, and the severing of the country's credit by international banking, ends apartheid's reign in 1990. 1950s - 1970s BRITS AND ALLIES RESIST SOVIET ENSLAVEMENT OF WESTERN EUROPE
The Soviet Union tightens its control, and the Iron Curtain descends on Eastern Europe. Britain works with America to keep Western Europe safe. They help to establish NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an alliance that integrates Americans and Western Europeans into a system of mutual defense. They maintain the BBC and Voice of America as alternative news sources to Soviet and Communist organs. They sustain the hope of the peoples of Eastern Europe that they will recover their freedom. Photo: pages.zdnet.com 1955 YOUNG REBELS ESTABLISH IEA TO DEFEND BRITAIN'S FREEDOM Ralph Harris, Lord Harris of High Cross, is a “fantastically ebullient personality” who sees that socialism is a walking disaster for an economy and a people because it destroys their independence, their ability to create, and their prosperity. A working class man, who understands the importance of a good education, which he receives in a grammar school and at Cambridge, he knows exactly how socialized welfare destroys working class initiative, self-respect, well-being, and happiness. In 1955, Antony Fisher, Ralph Harris, and Arthur Seldon establish the first free-market think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs to generate ideas, and undermine socialism and communism which are making inroads into Britain. They will win some great battles in keeping Britain free. (They will be unable to protect the grammar schools from the Labour Government which destroys them.) IEA's ideas will affect the working class people Harris loves, because its ideas are accepted, particularly by Margaret Thatcher, and a prosperous Britain lifts almost every boat. In 1979, Margaret Thatcher sends Harris to the House of Lords. 1969 PARLIAMENT LOWERS VOTING AGE TO 18 FOR ALL BRITS Old enough to hold a job, old enough to fight in the Army, old enough to vote. But are they old enough to vote? And is there anyone they would like to vote for? At a time when most women did not attend 1979-1980s MARGARET THATCHER ADVOCATES FREE MARKETS AND FREE MINDS In 1979, Britain is in dire straits with interest rates and inflation going through the roof and unions holding the country hostage. Brits no longer seem to believe in themselves. A number of major industries, nationalised in the '50s, appear to be dying. To stimulate the economy Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher decides to cut taxes and cut government support for nationalised industries by privatising them. She considers this a liberation that will unchain the creativity of Brits, and allow them to recreate prosperity. However, the oil crisis sends the economy into a slump, and unemployment strikes hard all across the country. Many of her own ministers fight her. They urge her to make a U-turn and let the Government command the economy. She believes that is the worst possible solution. Her popularity plummets, but she declares, "The lady's not for turning". Her resolute defence of the Falkland Islands against Argentine aggression in 1982 wins her national support and international support. "It was," writes Luigi Barzini, "a highly pragmatic operation undertaken in defense of international law and morality and surely not for gain." In 1984 five Brits are killed and dozens are injured when the IRA bombs the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton. Margaret Thatcher barely escapes, but undaunted, continues with the Conference, declaring, "All attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail". Her challenge continues to be liberating industries that had been run into the ground under government administration. British Airways, a slovenly and bankrupt national carrier, is privatised and transformed into one of the world's best and most profitable airlines. British Steel, once more than a billion pounds in the red as a state concern, becomes a successful company. Rather than bankrupting the nation, privatised industries pour wages and taxes back into the nation. Just as government cannot efficiently run a business, it cannot run a health service, but she is unable to liberate the National Health Service. The Soviets are the first to call Maggie Thatcher "the Iron Lady." Thatcher energetically supports U.S. President Ronald Reagan's decision to rearm against the Soviets' Margaret Thatcher's Government reduces government regulations which drag down business, helps to increase home ownership, and reduces taxes to stimulate the economy. (Partly in result, the booming economy brings in more tax revenues). She attacks the Welfare State, which in exchange for "the dole" imprisons men and women in a state-of-mind in which they lose their sense of individuality, initiative, achievement, and self-respect. In the late 1980s Margaret Thatcher realises that the project to create the European Union superstate threatens Britain's democracy and sovereignty, and refuses to support further integration. As a result, in 1991 she is driven from office by a cabal of Tories in her own Cabinet. Margaret Thatcher aims to change minds and recreate a Photo Credit: [email protected] 1970s - 1990s BRITS GIVE AID AND COMFORT TO PEOPLE BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN Philosopher Roger Scruton, Oxford don Kathy Wilkes, and Baroness Cox are three of the remarkable Brits who defy the iron grip of Communist governments and the secret police in Eastern Europe. For more on Baroness Cox » They establish British trusts that support Eastern European efforts to recover freedom, and they risk their own safety to help destroy the tyranny of Communism. 1980s-2005 CHRIS TAME WORKS TIRELESSLY TO RECOVER THE BRITISH LIBERTARIAN TRADITION Christopher Tame founds the Libertarian Alliance, a civil liberties and free market think tank in the early 1970s, when he is in his early twenties, and devotes his life to making these ideas popular. He takes issue with those Conservatives who see freedom in purely economic terms. He also takes issue with those who want all kinds of liberty, but not economic freedom. Tame believes that freedom should be defined in the traditional sense, as the rights to life, liberty and justly acquired property. Until his death from a rare bone cancer at the age of 55, he stays on mission, creating a national and international presence for the ideas of freedom and responsibility through conferences, media interviews, 700 publications, a website, and the magazine FREE LIFE. Sean Gabb continues the work of the Libertarian Alliance. 1989 BRITS FOR FREEDOM ESTABLISH BRUGES GROUP TO INVESTIGATE EU Brits led by Lord Harris of High Cross (see 1955 for details) establish the Bruges Group, an independent all-party think-tank to investigate the creeping menace of the European Union. Their inspiration is Margaret Thatcher's speech in Bruges, when she declares, "We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level". The Group's thorough research is crucial to its analysis of a common market that is metamorphosing into a tyrannical superstate. To read Bruges Group commentary » Forgetting who they are, rushing off on a bus to nowhere, members of the House of Commons approve the Maastricht Treaty. A brave few oppose Maastricht, which led to the formal creation of the European Union and the subversion of Britain's sovereignty. Photo: [email protected] 1992-1993 THE BRAVE FEW OPPOSE MAASTRICHT TREATY WHICH ALLOWS BRITAIN TO BE SWALLOWED BY UNDEMOCRATIC EUROPEAN UNION Led by John Major, the Conservative Government foists the Maastricht Treaty on Parliament, refusing at first to allow the House of Commons to read the Treaty on which they are to vote and claiming that the Treaty means only greater economic cooperation with Europe. In truth the Maastricht Treaty binds Britain into even closer political union with the European Union and takes Britain's independence and the rights of Brits away from them. Adamantly opposing the move, Labour MP Tony Benn declares that "We are "handing over the British people, without their consent, to a system that has replaced parliamentary democracy." A number of Conservative MPs are willing to vote against the Treaty and to defy their Party and the Whip. This means they will not be supported by the Party when they stand for election, but will enter a political wilderness. Those Conservatives brave enough to withstand the Whip before the confidence motion are Rupert Allason, Richard Body, Nick Budgen, Christopher Gill, Teresa Gorman, Tony Marlow, Richard Shepherd, Teddy Taylor, and John Wilkinson. In the House of Lords Baroness Cox also defies her party, and votes against Maastricht. The MPs speak so eloquently against Britain's loss of sovereignty and freedom that in the pandemonium of the House vote, the Maastricht Treaty is defeated 324 to 316. Then, in a move that flagrantly ignores Parliamentary tradition, the Government calls for a vote of confidence that will overturn the vote. Only one Conservative MP, Rupert Allason, is willing to let the Conservative Government go down to defeat, and the Government wins approval of the Maastricht Treaty by 39 votes. 1993 UK INDEPENDENCE PARTY OPPOSES OPPRESSIVE EU Since not one of the three major parties seems willing to oppose or even to express scepticism about the European Union, Dr. Alan Sked, a writer and historian, founds the UK Independence Party (UKIP). The aim of Sked and UKIP supporters is to persuade Brits that it is in their best interests to leave the European Union. Given that the EU threatens democracy, Constitutional rights to trial by jury, presumption of innocence, double jeopardy, and even British pensions, and given that the EU imposes oppressive regulations and huge costs, UKIP makes a strong case. However, it must fight for coverage from the mainstream media, which is either indifferent or supports the EU's project to create a socialist superstate. UKIP's mission will begin to bear fruit in the 21st century. 1995 JIMMY GOLDSMITH LEAVES MULTIBILLION BUSINESS TO ADVOCATE AGAINST EU AND FOR DEMOCRATIC DECENTRALIZATION A self-made multibillionaire with a colourful personal life, Sir James Goldsmith scorns Britain's surrender to the European Union's unelected and unsackable bureaucrats. It is, he says, "the greatest transfer of power in peacetime, and it took place under a system of organized secrecy." He is appalled as Britain's economy is devastated by the EU's Exchange Rate Mechanism. He decides to hold the undemocratic European Union and its sclerotic European economy accountable for the misery of the unemployed and Britain's loss of freedom. Already dying of cancer, Goldsmith uses his fortune to create Britain's Referendum Party. He mounts a campaign for a referendum that will give the British people the chance to say whether they want to scuttle the British pound, and join the euro. The momentum he and others create is so great that the British Government promises a referendum, but knowing it would lose it, never holds it. Consequently Britain does not adopt the euro, and escapes some of the tragic economic problems that plague Germany and France. For more on Defeating Threats to Freedom by the EU » 1999 SCOTLAND WINS DEVOLUTION; A FALSE SENSE OF FREEDOM? For years the Scots have wanted to govern themselves in their own Parliament. When the persevering and energetic Scottish National Party (SNP) threatens the Labour Party's domination of the British Parliament by taking votes and MPs, Labour promises 'devolution'. A word with Orwellian echoes, devolution is evolution back to past forms. In Scotland it will mean a Scottish Parliament, but not independence for Scotland.In the referendum on devolution, 60 percent of Scots vote, and the majority of them vote for a Scottish parliament with tax powers. At the same time, the Scots continue to be represented in the British Parliament, where they make decisions for all Brits. This has been called the political version of eating your cake twice. It is also part of the EU plan to destroy Britain by breaking her up into regions. Scotland's deep-seated fascination with socialism continues. Whether socialism has any connection with Scotland's declining economic indicators, time will tell. The Scots' passion for governing themselves is a legitimate one, and they have stayed true to that passion for more than 800 years. Their goal to become a free and independent nation in the European Union can never be realised because the EU is not democratic and intends to dissolve nation states. It is intended, as its full name indicates, to be the European Union of Regions, not independent nations. TO 21st Century » When you contribute to this website, |
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"This is what we believe," Margaret Thatcher said, holding up a book, and slammed Hayek's Constitution of Liberty down on the table. For UK orders: For US orders:
Margaret Thatcher speaks about the challenges facing the 21st century. For UK orders: For US orders:
Divided by the Iron Curtain, Eastern and Western Europe conducted a test. On one side was the Socialist model, run by a few people from above. On the other side was the Anglo-American model with self-initiative, free markets and information providing opportunities. The result: the people of the Socialist model threw off their controllers and chose free enterprise and prosperity.
Vernon Coleman is the popular author of novels and non-fiction which have sold more than 2 million copies. His England Our England is a compact guide to the unmitigated disaster of the EU. For UK orders: For US orders:
Christopher Booker and Richard North incisively show how the EU has secretly subverted freedom. For UK orders:
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