The Rest Is History - 11. Brexit

Episode Date: December 28, 2020

As Britain leaves the EU, Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook look at the best & worst comparisons from history that have been made to Brexit.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. Welcome to The Rest Is History with me, Dominic Sandbrook, and my sidekick, or my puppet master as he calls himself, Tom Holland. Tom, hello. Hello. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Now, we are not yet in the New Year. We're anticipating the New Year.

So, we are very exercised aren't we about the b word the word that's been on everybody's lips for the last five years or so brexit and we don't know what's going to happen which is very exciting because our listeners will know you'll listen you'll know when you're listening to this but we don't know whether there'll be a deal whether britain will have forged manfully into its new future or whether we'll be um you know blocked up with lorries on the roads and disaster and all the rest of it um so there's an element of sort of jeopardy isn't there tom very exciting very very exciting indeed um and i think it's been heroic of us so far in the episodes we've done barely to mention brexit because i guess in a way um the arguments about

it whether you are in in favor of leaving or remaining, was always about history. Yeah, you're right. They have always been about history. So that is what we thought we might focus on today, is the comparisons that people have made in the debates over the past few years between the Brexit that we're going through now and previous examples of Brexit. Well, before we do that, we should quickly say, before you all turn off, we are not going to have any degree of argument about or discussion about whether Brexit was a good thing or a bad thing or why we did it or anything like that, are we?

We're going to steer well clear of that and we're going to wear our historian's hats very firmly. I actually suspect we don't really disagree about Brexit, so it wouldn't even be a very interesting podcast anyway. However, we're going to talk about all these fascinating historical comparisons. And do you want to go first, Tom? I think you've got a colossal list of possible parallels. Yes, so I've drawn up what I think of the top 10 comparisons that people have made. Top 10 Brexits. Top ten Brexits. Over the centuries, and not just the centuries, over the millennia, because the very first Brexit is the drowning of Doggerland beneath the tsunami,

which happened 8,200 years ago. And Doggerland, of course, was, you know, Britain was originally attached to the continent with the ending of the Ice Age. Enorm enormous amounts of ice gets released into the sea. So the sea levels rise. And so this is the results in the North Sea. And there seems to have been a particular kind of disaster when there were kind of landslips by Norway. Great tsunami burst across and leaves Britain an island. And I guess that that is a fairly fundamental event because the fact that Britain is an island means that geography kind

of underpins pretty much everything. Yeah. Are you one of these people who thinks that Britain's island nation identity is sort of fundamental to Britishness. Do you think that? Do you buy all that? I do think that the consciousness that we're separated from the mainland of Europe by that narrow strip of water is fairly fundamental. And I think that it generates exactly what we're talking about over this episode, which is this sense of push me, pull you. That we can't separate ourselves completely from the continent because we're too close to it. But equally, the impulse to do that is always there.

And I think that that is why we've had all these Brexits. Can I ask you a question that shows my ignorance, just about the Doggerland question? When did human beings come to Britain? Well they came in waves um and then the ice ages come and crunch and crash everything up and they retreat and then they come back so there were people there who were detached from you know who were brexiteers involuntary brexiteers uh when well brexiteers to the extent that they exit britain yes yeah so that the there are kind of various hominids who who settle in britain and then retreat when the ice comes down and then they come back. But basically people have been continuously in Britain since the Mesolithic.

So they arrived in Britain, the original inhabitants, because there was this land bridge. And interestingly, there was a kind of report early December that said that this Brexit, the Doggerland Brexit, may actually have been kind of slightly more after than we'd imagined. Because they're arguing that... Still in the single market. Yes, that there were kind of little islands that were left and that they only gradually sank. So it was a slightly more protracted Brexit. It wasn't quite as hard a Brexit as people had assumed.

Anyway, well done. We've done Doggerland without making the obvious joke, so that's excellent. Well done. it wasn't quite as hard a brexit as as people had assumed anyway well done we've we've got we've done that we've got we've done doggerland without making the obvious joke so that's excellent well done and number two dominic what have you got for us so number two a few people uh brought this up so they asked about um rome so ollie simpson for example um raised said ac grayling had recently compared the eu with the roman Empire safety in numbers quality roads etc apparently is a bid to make us want to be part of it says Olly Simpson now yeah this is an interesting thing so this isn't really us leaving them so much as them leaving us right that the

Romans well in in the sort of the sort of children's history book version of our past the Romans all leave Britain in what is it 410 Right about 410 they're meant to have left? Well, there are two iterations of this. Because we also have Andrew Sheldon comments, just Carusius. And Carusius was a Roman general who had control of the fleet in the Channel. And he essentially grabs hold of Britain and a chunk of Northern Gaul and declares his independence.

And this has often been compared to Brexit. But actually, Crassus didn't want to leave the Roman Empire. He essentially wanted to be Roman Emperor himself. So I don't think that counts. So we're not including that. Actually, the Britons do leave. As far as we can tell, they do actively do a Brexit. No, the britons leave

yeah they say so either 409 410 as is typical with ancient history we can't absolutely pin this down we had a historian says contemporary historian says that the britons defected from roman rule and lived their own lives independent from roman laws so that does sound like a kind of Brexit. Steve Baker's fantasy. They then seem to have slightly repented it. Again, there are confusions around the sources, but it does seem that Britain's right to the emperor and say, well, everything's going wrong, please can we come back here? By this point, the empire's kind of imploding. And so the emperor writes back and says, you're on your own, you got to cope yeah um and everything goes i mean it has to be said that the uh the right you know this brexit in the fifth century doesn't entirely go according to plan

because basically the entire economy in place because the roman empire was what was what enabled the british economy to function but this isn't a brexit as in britain taking a unique path though is it because i mean what happened to to Britain at the end of this period, in sort of late antiquity, is surely exactly what happened to Spain or, you know, Gaul or any of the other kind of provinces of the Western Roman Empire, that they fragment. And even if we wanted to stay in the Roman Empire, there was no Roman Empire in the West anymore to be part of, right?

I think that's kind of true. But this happened, you know, the process of Rome's fall happens over several decades across the course of the 10th century. This is pretty early. And what is distinctive about it is that, you know, as the historian says,

that the Britons take a decision to cast off Roman laws, Roman rule, and I guess Roman tax collectors. That's the kind of the key, the key fact. But by casting off the Roman tax collectors, they're by casting off the roman tax collectors they're also casting off the ability to to have a monetary economy and essentially coinage vanishes

for 100 200 years 300 years and it's back to barter and that is kind of the you know that is the remainers worst nightmare for what might happen might happen to Brexit Britain is that we all sit around bartering turnips and things. So, yeah, so I think that's quite an interesting one. Well, here's a quick question for you before we move on. I think the end of Rome and Britain is such a fascinating subject. We should do a whole podcast on it. But do people have at that stage any sense of British distinctiveness? Surely they don't.

They don't feel that they are unique and they are separate from other provinces of the Roman Empire in a way that is not true in Spain or in Portugal or wherever. Well, it's really hard to know because we have so few, we have almost nothing written by Britons. And I think that one of the things that is distinctive about Britain, for instance, Britain is, there are no British senators. And you have Gauls who laugh, there is a British poet and a Gaulish poet laughs at the very idea of this.

So you clearly have the sense, even, you know, fourth, fifth centuries, that the Britons are bumpkins, are barbarians, are backward. And I think one of the measures of what makes Britain distinctive in the Roman Empire and the way that it leaves the Roman Empire is that in Britain, we do not speak a form of Latin.

You do in Spain, you do in Italy, you do in France. In Britain here, we speak a Germanic language. And so clearly something, whether it's something about the relationship of Britain as a province to the rest of the empire, or whether it's about the distinctive circumstances in which Britain ceases to be Roman, but clearly the fact that we do not speak a form of Latin, I think is the measure of just how seismic that Brexit was. So I think that's a good one. So let's put that right there. That's a tick, isn't it?

Well, not a good Brexit, but it's a powerful parallel. Next. Number three, I think, is let's flag up the reign of King John. We can all agree, bad king. Bad king, yes, I think the worst, probably. A man who really does seem to have been as bad as everyone says he was. And it's so nice when the clichés and the stereotypes turn out to be true. So his Brexit comes in two waves.

So he loses the lands that he has inherited from his father on the continent in France. So in 1204, he loses the Duchy of Normandy, which of course is an inheritance from William the Conqueror originally. But he's also lost all the lands further south, the Angevin Empire. Then the following year, the Archbishop of Canterbury dies and John has his candidate. The canons at Canterbury have their candidate, and there's a kind of debate about that.

But the Pope, Innocent III, who is kind of like the uber-Pope of the Middle Ages, he's incredibly powerful, very keen on his own authority. He insists on posing his own candidate, a guy called Stephen Langton, and John refuses to allow Langton to come and claim the Archbishopric of Canterbury. So Innocent III imposes an interdict on 1208,

which basically means no services. 1209, he excommunicates John. John says, well, whatever, you know, I'm fine, let's have a hard Brexit. You know, we'll trade under wto terms whatever 12 13 there is a threat of a french invasion and suddenly john goes oh and he basically sues for term he negotiates to come back in and not only that but he basically makes a kind of gift of england to uh to innocent the third it becomes kind of papal fiefdom, which is kind of like we have a hard Brexit

and then it all goes wrong. And basically we, not only do we rejoin the EU, but we sign up to the Euro and we become a province of Belgium or something. And we're Luxembourg. It's a huge humiliation. But, and from that point on, Innocent III is then, regards John as basically an ally

and takes John's side as the French king. So at this stage, we have the arrival of the sort of Brexiteers nightmare, which is the sort of super state, which is the Catholic Church, right? So the Catholic Church is the sort of EU with knobs on, if you like. Britain is part of a supranational um body that has authority over things i mean this is the big issue that's going to come up later in our next example isn't it yes the fact that the catholic church has authority in england over and above the king yes and this has ancient roots i mean this is the pope gregory the great sends missionaries to to england um and

then you have uh other missionaries coming from Ireland and you have this huge debate at the Synod of Whitby. Yes. Fuck, what's the date of the Synod of Whitby? Ah, we need to know that. Dominic, have you got Wi-Fi to hand? Hold on. Then in 664, you have the Synod at Whitby,

a gathering of churchmen, and they decide, you know, are we going to go with the Celtic tradition or are we going to go with the roman tradition they go with the roman tradition and i guess that's the equivalent of joining the common market so that yeah it's the edward heath anglo-saxon edward heath and then of course and then you have the normal conquest so so in those two ways we're we're joined to a roman model of Christianity. And then thanks to William the Conqueror, we're joined to essentially a French-centred state. And John's reign sees an attempt to get rid, well, I mean, John loses the Norman lands

and he tries to cast off the Roman. And for 500 years or so, I mean, our politics is pretty much entangled with that of France, isn't it? I mean, you can't tell those two stories about France and England separately. But all of this basically cues up what I think is the single biggest parallel with Brexit, which is the Reformation, the Henrician Reformation in the 1530s. So this is the example that I know you're no longer allowed to mention his name as a historian.

David Starkey has, I mean, he's described Henry VIII as the first Brexiteer. And it's in the 1530s. I mean, this seemsxiteer. And it's in the 1530s. I mean, this seems so compelling to me because it's in the 1530s that you first get Parliament declaring that England is an empire, that England is its own thing, and the authority of foreign priests and prelates will not apply to England, and that it's the king who is the supreme head and governor of England's church and that Britain is Britain sorry England is distinctive that it has an exceptional place

and an exceptional destiny and the effect later on of course you get the Puritan idea that England has been chosen by God as the sort of vehicle for a purer form of christianity and that the continental superstitious catholic stuff the you know the antichrist the bishop of rome all of this kind of thing i mean this feels to me so central in england's identity later scotland's identity yeah well scott because you said britain but i mean scott it is a scottish reformation as well yes you know they're smashing up abbey's kind of incredible detail that they even went around picking up all the flowers that the monks had planted, which really is...

That's attention to detail, isn't it? It really is. Yes, I mean, this is the classic one, isn't it? And do you buy that? I mean, I think this left such a massive imprint in England's sense of itself, in England's sense of difference. And then, of course, that's compounded by the Spanish Armada

and the gunpowder plot and all of these kinds of things. And I think, you know, I don't actually think it's a massive stretch to argue that Britain's sense of its own distinctiveness vis-à-vis the EU has some vague psychological connection to our history in the 16th century. I think that's true. But if we're talking about whether it's a parallel, so David McCullough, great historian of the Reformation, his point is that Brexit, of course, is distinctively British.

Britain is the only country that's even thinking about leaving the European Union, whereas the Reformation is obviously a pan-European thing. And Henry's Reformation follows in the pan-European thing. And Henry's Reformation follows in the wake of what's been going on in Germany. It will be hugely influenced by what happens in Switzerland. It happened, you know, under Elizabeth I, the Protestants in England have allies in the Dutch Republic. So this is a kind of international effort. So perhaps whether that muddies the water, do you think? Well, it does muddy the water a bit, doesn't it?

Because you're right that the Reformation was imported into England. I mean, it was literally imported in the form of sort of pamphlets and Bibles and this sort of stuff. But I guess it also had a distinctively English cast for two reasons. One, it was obviously generated by Henry and his carry-on with his wives. Had it not been for Anne Boleyn and whatnot, then maybe we would have gone down a much more French line. There's no reason why Protestantism was inevitably going to succeed in England. But also because in England, it's bound up with the monarchy, isn't it? I mean, there's so Protestantism in England becomes bound up with a kind of patriotic loyalty to the state

in a way that's maybe not quite the case in Germany or in some of these other places in Switzerland or something. And that in turn cues up our next Brexit, which I think we could, the protectorate under Cromwell, which is ushered in by the execution of Charles I. And you were talking about the kind of sacral role that the monarch plays in the Reformation. But of course, by chopping off a king's head, the revolutionaries in England are really, really flicking a V sign at the whole of Europe. Yes.

And I think by this stage, what you definitely have, so I think Henry, you know, Henry clearly, Henry VIII in the 1530s he picked up these sort of reformation arguments because they suited him because they would make him rich he'd be able to get all the monastery's money and because he would get you know the wife he wanted but i think what you have in the 17th century that is distinctive from the 16th century is you have a much more profound a genuine ideological sense of distinctiveness, don't you? So somebody like Oliver Cromwell, he really thinks that England has been chosen by God, that it is the new Jerusalem, that England has this sort of unique fate to lead the rest of the world,

or maybe to let the rest of the world sink into depravity while it becomes this sort of pristine promised land. I think that's not quite there in the century before that. I guess there is an element, I mean, there's a strand among Brexiteers who, I guess, had hoped that Brexit would set up a chain reaction, that what Britain has done would serve as a kind of model. And I guess a lot of the European Union's policy towards Brexit has been a determination not to allow that to happen. But that was certainly something under the protectorate that enthusiasts for it hoped that England would serve as a kind of light to help a European continent benighted with potpourri and whatever, discover the truth of

God. and in that context as we've got an interesting um tweet from pat roberts he's talking about great writers in in english literature um he says defoe remains swift leave uh byron remain blake leave thackeray remain trollop leave virginia wolf remain arnold bennett leave but at the top he's got shakespeare remain and milton leave and of course, Milton is Cromwell's secretary. He's the guy who is essentially speaking to the people of Europe, explaining Brexit, if you want, explaining what's been happened, why it's been done,

and definitely kind of hoping that what's going on here will serve to kind of light the rest of Europe. So kind of, they're a vein. I buy Milton as a leaver. Shakespeare, I suppose I'd buy Shakespeare as a remainer, but he's probably, I don't see him as a people's voter. No, I don't think Shakespeare would have voted. I think he, I think, I mean, Falstaff is a leaver, isn't he?

Yeah, but Falstaff gets rejected. I mean, and Henry V, who then goes on and invades France he's massively in favour of the European Union he wants to run it Well on that note I think we should should we take a break before we get involved with the next, the second tranche of air? Yes because we've done

one to five so come back and we'll get from six to ten i'm marina hyde and i'm richard osmond and together we host the rest is entertainment it's your weekly fix of entertainment news reviews splash of showbiz gossip and on our q a we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works we have just launched our members club if you want ad-free listening bonus episodes and early access to live tickets head to the rest of entertainment.com that's the rest is entertainment.com welcome back to the rest is history uh with me dominic samrick and tom holland and we're talking about brexit parallels now one thing that's always interesting to me tom is this stuff about global

britain which is so popular with Brexiteers. So they believe, you know, we should lift our heads from the muddy fields of Flanders and look to the wide open seas and to Singapore and our former colonies and all this kind of business. And I guess a key moment in that, probably the key moment in it, actually, in the sense of Britain being a global enterprise, is the Seven Years' War. So that's 1756 to 1763 and that's a moment I think when you can see Britain getting a slightly different sense of itself as a as a world power you know our frontiers are in the South Atlantic and the Pacific and in Canada and so on in India India particularly and do you think

that's a key moment in our sense of ourselves and our sort of sense of Britain's place in the world? Yes. Britain is, I mean, as you say, is at war, particularly with France. So kind of a recurring theme. And, of course, Britain does have allies on the continent, notably Frederick the Great. And, of course, the King of England,

King of Britain is also the Elector of Canada. So there are, you know, Britain isn't completely cut off from the continent, but basically it's the first time where the main theatres of war are for Britain, as you say, in North America, Canada, India, on the ocean. And I do think that that kind of established it, that is kind of quite important for establishing this idea

that Britain looks to the seas. And of course, it isn't only Brexiteers who have pushed that. General de Gaulle did as well. I mean, that was the reason he gave for vetoing Britain's application, was that Britain looks to the seas. I mean, I think the idea that Brexit happened because Leavers wanted to restore the British Empire, I think has been quite an important strand

in remain hostility to Brexit. Yeah. Though I don't think it's very well founded, personally. I don't think, if you look at polls, I don't believe that people have any, I mean, people don't know anything about the British Empire at all. No.

I think it's much more Little England than global Britain. They retreat to hobbit holes. Yeah, the shire folk. Yeah, but I think that to the degree that, you know, the goalist argument that Britain looks to the seas, the Remainer argument that this is all about empire, Seven Years' War is a kind of crucial moment where suddenly Britain's main focus is moving from the continent to the broader seas. Remainer argument that this is all about empire. Seven Years' War is a kind of crucial moment where

suddenly Britain's main focus is moving from the continent to the broader sea. So I think that's a good one. I think that's... Have you read, there's a great, there's a history of the Seven Years' War by a folk called Brendan Sims. If you remember this, it's about 7,000 pages long. And Brendan Sims' argument was always, and Brendan Sims completely disagrees with what we've just said. He says Britain's focus was always Europe britain always cared more about europe than this empire but his sort of he's a controversial figure among historians and his credibility was slightly damaged for me a couple of years ago just before the eu referendum when he said that this he believed britain was about to play a leading role than you and would be the prussia of sort of german

unification yes the european Yes, the European outcast, loathed and despised by everybody else in Europe. Well, maybe it came to... I think Brendan Sims is a really interesting writer, I think, on Britain's relationship to Europe and Ireland's relationship to Britain and the whole nexus. Well, we'll come back to Ireland. Let's come back to Ireland. Yeah, we will, we will.

Because we've got another big Franco, Anglo-Franco dust-up to come, haven't we? Which is, of course, the Napoleonic Wars so that that is coming in at number seven um and basically this is a brexit that is forced on britain because napoleon has conquered the whole of continental europe enforces continental system where um british goods are not allowed to enter the European markets, and British army is unable to land anywhere on the mainland, except, of course, for Portugal. Yeah, the Peninsular War. The attempt to reverse Brexit, which culminates ultimately at Waterloo, I guess. Yeah, and this is sort of going the other way, though, isn't it? Because we're keen to get into Europe, just in a very armed way.

And Napoleon wants to keep us out. So he's de Gaulle in this analogy, I suppose. Yeah, I mean, I think that the French suspicion of Britain and the desire to exclude Britain from the common market was obviously a huge theme. And it does seem at the moment, and obviously we're recording this, we don't know whether there's going to be a deal or not, but it does seem that the main um continental leader uh blocking a deal is president macron um so there are clearly kind of quite deep roots here well this is the sort of frog and

scorpion isn't it you know why did you why did you sting me or whatever it is because it's in my nature i mean that the french wouldn't be the French. I mean, it wouldn't be right for them to just wave it through and wish us the best. I mean, that wouldn't be, they wouldn't be true to themselves. And I think the way that the government was saying how they're going to board French fishing ships and they're mobilising the Navy and everything,

and lots of comments saying this is ridiculous, it's sabre-rattling. But obviously, actually, I think quite a substratum of opinion in Britain, quite keen on the idea of sending the Royal Navy into the channel against the French. I was about to say, there must be quite a large proportion of people who go into politics who fantasise that at some point they'll be able to mobilise

the Navy against the French, right? I mean, that's why you go into politics in the first place. That is the kind of dark anxiety of anyone watching Gavin Williamson. Yes. But there was an interesting point here, Tom, which is that Napoleon, you know, he exercised this huge sort of, he had this big role in the British imagination. And there was always a sense in So, I mean, decimalisation is a very good example of a Napoleonic innovation from which Britain stood aloof for, you know, for more than a century, basically.

I once wrote a column which had the headline, I think it said something like, Dominic Sandbrook looks back on the moment Britain lost its national soul. There's nothing to be proud of. I can't believe you're basing it on this. And it was about the moment that we adopted a decimal currency yeah you are the new duke of wellington you're not doing any

of that napoleonic nonsense so that's quite a good one i mean that's kind of it's it's a it's um it stands on its head because that's us wanting to join and not being allowed to anyway so napoleonic wars is number seven so uh what have we got at eight so number eight is splendid isolation and i suppose this isn't a moment this is more of a sort of theme isn't it this is the sort of late 19th century uh britain sees itself as you know it's not we're now quite clearly top nation we have the empire the empire assumes this sort of colossal role in Britain's political imagination. The defence of India is our leading priority. And for people like Lord Salisbury, the Tory Prime Minister at the end of the 19th, 30th, 20th century, this sense that Britain should avoid international

entanglement, should stand apart. So for example, the Franco-Prussian War, which we talked about in our First World War podcast, that happens in 1870, 71. There's no question of Britain getting involved in it. And there's a sense, I think, quite a strong sense in late 19th century Britain that Britain is somehow above European, sort of petty European alliance politics. Of course, that was to prove not the case.

But I think that, again, psychologically, has left a deep imprint in that people still this sort of isolationism yeah it's kind of fogging the channel continent cut off continent cut off exactly yes exactly and I think um you know we saw how wrong that was with the first world war when you know we did the very opposite of a brexit we piled in but I think imaginatively Tom that's left a a very long legacy don't you well isn't it the case that almost invariably, where you think there's a long historical tradition, it turns out to have been invented by the Victorians?

And it may be that everything that we've been talking about, this kind of sense of Britain being an island and separate and distinct and everything that animated the Brexit vote, is basically a legacy of that late Victorian sense of itself when we really were kind of isolated because we had the Navy. So nobody could cross the sea without our permission. And our investments were all global. And I think that perhaps the cast of thought,

maybe that is something that lingers. Don't know. Yeah, no, I think it does. I think it's that sort of sense, isn't it, that there's sort of people in Buenos Aires playing rugby and talking about beef, and that Britain has become this much more global enterprise, and that the politics of Belgium and Luxembourg and whatnot

seems so small-scale. Although, I mean, Britain acts as a guarantor for Belgium, right? Yeah, of course. And Disraeli is negotiating with Bismarck. So Britain isn't... I mean, we're not as gloriously isolated as perhaps the myth would have it. The glorious isolation is more... It's a sort of...

It's an aspiration, I think, as much as a reality, yeah. And, you know, we were talking about the historian Brendan Sims. He would say, this is all rubbish and actually Britain was always profoundly entangled with European politics. I mean, that's the fascination of this subject, isn't it? It's actually quite apart from the sort of the ranting and raving of the various partisans.

It's such a fascinating subject because rather like, I think rather like Russia, Britain has always been in this position where it is clearly part of the continental system and part of Europe, and yet at the same time feels itself pulled away from it. And that will never be resolved. And the effect of all these historical episodes is kind of double ratcheted up, because in the present, there is this sense, and then it gets enhanced and turbocharged by kind of distorted myths and memories of how the past had operated.

On both sides, though, on both sides. So the Brexiteers think that we've always been different and Remainers say, oh, no, you've always been completely European. You had European monarchs and blah, blah, blah. And they both, as you say, they sort of double down on the sort of historical myth making. And talking of historical myth making, we now come to number nine. This is slightly different and is prompted by a tweet from Pat Roberts, who says the ERG versus Theresa May. So the ERG, the kind of the Spartan, the Spartans, the hardcore Brexiteers, versus Theresa May is de Valera versus Michael Collins.

Are you really leaving if you're still taking the oath? So that's a reference to um not Britain leaving Europe but Ireland leaving the United Kingdom and yeah I think that is a kind of interesting one because um Ireland leaving the United Kingdom it was leaving a kind of single market um yes leaving a union of nations um everyone said this will be economically disastrous went ahead anyway did turn out to be economically difficult and one of the things that that was difficult for ireland was that it basically remained within the tract of beam of the british economy yes really right the way up until joining the common market um and i guess that the

remain argument is that that will be the fate of Britain that we may formally leave the European Union but our economy will not be strong enough to escape the tractor beam so effectively we will be dependent but without any say and so that was the argument against Irish independence. Well that is the argument but also there's another dimension to it Tom which is I think that people often talk about Britain rejoining the EU. They sort of say, well, you know, you'll realise your mistake, or we'll realise our mistake, and we will go back. But of course, very quickly in Ireland, I mean, there had been the case when somebody secedes from a union or becomes independent. Once the decision is made, it becomes the status quo incredibly quickly and it becomes very, very hard to row back. So if you'd said to somebody in Ireland in 1951, let's say, do you not regret it now? Do you think you should rejoin the United Kingdom?

I mean, they would have laughed at you. It seemed such a ludicrous suggestion. It would have seemed impossible to rejoin the UK. Although I suppose the difference is that there's a kind of legacy of overt imperialism. Yes. That has poisoned relations between, I suppose, particularly England and Ireland for centuries and centuries. And that hasn't been the case with Europe. No, it hasn't. But of course, if you're a very keen Brexiteer, you would say,

you know, the Irish look to their history and they see a story of separateness and distinctiveness that has finally been vindicated or has finally been, you know, finally sort of redeemed the suffering of the past. And a Brexiteer would say, well, they would similarly point to a distinctive history and they would say this is merely the culmination of that long history. Of course, not a history that has a sort of sense of suffering in it in the same way. But I think, isn't this what countries always do when they leave unions or when they become independent? They then create a nationalist sort of historiography of which this is merely the crowning glory. Yes. But I guess, I mean, just to reiterate,

I think that the difference is that it is hard for Brexiteers, although maybe some of the more extreme However, lurking behind all of that, the attitude towards the continent is perhaps the most recent Brexit. So what do we have at number 10, Dominic? Well, I think this is a very, yeah, this is the funnest Brexit, which is Dunkirk. So Dunkirk is a literal Brexit.

I mean, we literally leave European soil. Of course, again, like all Brexits, it's kind of muddy because we take some French and some Belgian soldiers with us. We rely very much on the French and the Belgians to kind of shield our retreat. And there's that, you know, all that famous stuff about George VI saying to Churchill that he feels much better after Dunkirk because we no longer have any allies that we have to be nice to. But of course we do because we've got all the poles flying. Yeah. There's sort of the famous cartoon in the evening standard of the Tommy standing on the cliffs, shaking his fist at the clouds and saying, very well then alone.

And obviously Dunkirk, as a Brexit, has played a massive role in our sense of ourselves right so clearly the mythology of it has been important and the readiness of certain tory mps to vote the second world war whenever the topic of brexit comes up very inaptly named has been and nigel thrush has been a kind of running um running feature of the the Brexit debate it's not remotely accurate is it because the European Union can in no way be compared to Nazi Germany I mean no although of course people have tried I think there's a isn't there a book by um Andrew Roberts a novel called the Archen Memorandum which is it's even got the kind of

gothic script of the title. It's done in a sort of Germanic script. I think it was published in the mid 1990s. And that's about, I think it's a plot for a fourth Reich or something like that. I mean, not even the most vituperative Brexiteer. I can absolutely see that the mythology of it, very well alone, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. We won the Second World War, blah, blah. I mean, that is clearly a crucial part of the mythology of it very well alone all that kind of stuff yeah we won the second world war blah blah i mean that's that is clearly crucial part of the the kind of emotional swirl as a parallel it's a terrible parallel well i mean all these parallels i mean parallels by their nature of course but i think this is a particularly a particularly terrible parallel but i think

this is i mean i think if i was picking two that mattered okay so we've we've gone through the 10 we've gone through the 10 let's should we pick the 10. Let's, should we pick out our top three? Right, okay. Okay, and we're not saying the most accurate because none of them are accurate. I mean, these are all incredibly tendentious parallels. I mean, that's the nature of these parallels. Let's say... I've already done this podcast. Yes, absolutely. But let's say the ones that hold up the most interesting mirror. Okay, so if I was picking, I mean, your first one, which a lot of people would have thought was sort of very spurious,

which is the Dogland one. I mean, you can argue that really matters, right? I think it's the most important. I think it's the single most important. Britain as an island. Yeah, the geography is fundamental. I would include that. I would include,

I would personally definitely include the Reformation. Would you include the Reformation? Definitely. This is disappointing. Oh. Reformation came in, you were rejecting a whole corpus of laws and assumptions and proprieties, and you were definitely setting yourself at odds with the major powers on the continent. So I think that, yeah, I think that's probably the least tendentious parallel of the lot. You see, if I was picking, I mean, it's not a very successful parallel, as we've said, but in terms of mattering, I dunkirk and the second world war i think you get you know the second world war you don't get brexit i mean obviously you don't because the history is

different but the second world war place that sort of dad's army dam busters view of britain and indeed of europe is so huge in people's sense of their own national identity. And I think it matters so much that Britain is the one major European country that goes through both world wars without being occupied and without being defeated. And it means the way we tell the story of the 20th century in which the EU is created is very different from how every other European country tells that story. Don't you think Dunkirk matters? Okay, if we, based on the fact that we're talking about the most interesting mirror, I will, I'll grant you that. I do think it's played a crucial role in...

Are you gutted we didn't choose King John? Quite disappointed. Yeah, quite disappointed. Well, you see, there are a number of, there are a number on these that, if you're expecting the worst, and to reiterate, we don't know whether people, even as we speak, are squabbling over turnips out on the streets. So if that's the case, if there has been no deal and it's all gone disastrously wrong and planes are dropping from the air, then the Roman Brexit, that might be a good comparison. And the John one would be interesting in terms of you know

if it goes spectacularly wrong will we perhaps have to go back cap in hand um the Irish one I think is also interesting that even if that happens probably not let me ask you a question Tom about the Roman Brexit uh which I find so fascinating when the Romans left I mean did they leave did people who left surely I mean the number of people who actually physically left must have been pretty small. increasingly coming across the North Sea. So there are large quantities of forces in Britain. And as the centre implodes on the continent, so it becomes incredibly appealing for Roman commanders in Britain to have a crack at becoming emperor. And so they increasingly strip the province of its garrisons,

take them across the Channel. They invariably lose. So ultimately what's happened by the beginning of the 5th century is that you no longer have any garrisons take them across the channel. They invariably lose. So ultimately what's happened by the beginning of the fifth century is that you no longer have any garrisons, really. You don't really have any Roman forces left. And yet the Britons have still been required to pay the taxes. So I think that that's essentially what precipitates the kind of we're Brexiting. Their EU budget contributions are not seeing a decent return yeah exactly exactly so um so yeah interest but i agree i totally agree about you that we must do

a podcast on the end of roman britain i think it would be yeah very very interesting one of our new year's resolutions yes uh anyway so um i hope you've enjoyed that. Wishing you a very happy new year and as good a Brexit as we can hope. And I hope everything in 2021 is better than it's been in 2020. Thanks very much for listening. Goodbye. Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat community,

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