Autumn Webinars - Background Reading and Programme

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Last year Thinking Workshops ran a series of webinars centred upon electoral reform for UK overseas voters.  Since then the 15 year cap on UK citizens being able to vote in UK Parliamentary elections and referenda has been removed by statute but the necessary secondary legislation has not been enacted.  Over two and a half years ago the UK left the EU (31 January 2020).  The new reality is now firmly established.

Ignored and snubbed by the British government, the status of British citizens legally resident in France is that of third country national as defined by the European Union.  France continues to embrace resident European Britons, an as yet ill defined community with no discernible focus.  This identity void was starkly illustrated by the total lack of any UK consular effort to organise a memorial for British citizens to mourn the loss of Queen Elizabeth II whilst set against numerous French memorials in communities across the country.

The real void is that there is no unifying entity which adequately embraces the community of European Britons in France.  Whilst there are innumerable groups and associations catering for niche interests and many set up in the wake of the 2016 referendum, some on social media, none focusses of the core identity of European Britons.  None of these fit the new reality, none of these fill the identity void of “Who am I?”  They are “not me”!

Thinking Workshops wants to work on this and think about it!

The autumn programme of webinars follows on from the introductory sessions held last year but there will be no keynote speakers.  The principal contributors will be the webinar participants. Established organisations punt a line but when people are disengaged because none of the offerings are relevant then the only way to forge a common identity or a community is to ask the punters what they want.  The answer to “Not me” is “What do you want?”

What are the rights & responsibilities of European Britons with regard to the UK, the EU & France?  

2030 (CET) Wednesday 12 October 2022

What are the rights & responsibilities of European Britons with regard to the UK?

2030 (CET) Wednesday 9 November 2022

What are the rights & responsibilities of European Britons with regard to the EU?

2030 (CET) Wednesday 14 December 2022

What are the rights & responsibilities of European Britons with regard to France?

There is a limited number of places for these webinars; first come first served!  To participate send an email to info@thinkingworkshops.euto receive the Zoom link.

Conspiracy and cock-up or just arrogant laziness?

In turbulent times conspiracy theories flourish.  Nevertheless, apparently unrelated features of our political narrative suggest there may be something consistent going on behind the scenes.  Has UK secretly imported America’s best known film character after Scarlett O’Hara?

Most recently, the apparently, now minor player, David Cameron has suddenly been thrown to the lions over undue influence.  Rewind a little.  Keir Starmer, headline-hitting champion of the best British values, is not making waves.  Why not?  Ed Davey ditto.  Vince Cable, the one-time star of the Coalition, silent.  Dominic Cummings gone.  And why is the Guardian silenced on HMG’s refusal to help Eurostar survive?

Is there a Wizard of Oz behind a velvet curtain conducting the lies?  If so, who might this shadowy person or organisation be?  What is their source of power?  What’s the goal?

If you have ideas, why not help us join up the dots, for real, or for fun!

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/aug/14/as-a-descendant-of-immigrants-how-can-i-feel-either-italian-or-british-ask-philippa?CMP=share_btn_link

Back to the future

The song was originally the final musical number in Thomas Arne's Alfred the Great, a masque, co-written by James Malletand first performed at Cliveden, the country home of Frederick, Prince of Wales, on 1 August 1740.

When Britain first, at Heaven's command
Arose from out the azure main;
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sang this strain:
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."

The nations, not so blest as thee,
Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."

Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful, from each foreign stroke;
As the loud blast that tears the skies,
Serves but to root thy native oak.
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame:
All their attempts to bend thee down,
Will but arouse thy generous flame;
But work their woe, and thy renown.
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."

To thee belongs the rural reign;
Thy cities shall with commerce shine:
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine.
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."

The Muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair;
Blest Isle! With matchless beauty crown'd,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."

 Symbolism

‘Rule, Britannia!’ developed an independent life of its own, separate from the masque of which it had formed a part.  First heard in London in 1745, it achieved instant popularity.  It quickly became

so well known that Handel quoted it in his Occasional Oratorio the following year.  Handel used the first phrase as part of the Act II soprano aria, ‘Prophetic visions strike my eye’, when the soprano sings it at the words ‘War shall cease, welcome peace!’  The song was seized upon by the Jacobites, who altered Thomson's words to a pro-Jacobite version.

According to Armitage ‘Rule, Britannia’ was the most lasting expression of the conception of Britain and the British Empire that emerged in the 1730s, ‘predicated on a mixture of adulterated mercantilism, nationalistic anxiety and libertarian fervour’.  He equates the song with Bolingbroke’s  On the Idea of a Patriot King (1738), also written for the private circle of Frederick, Prince of Wales, in which Bolingbroke had ‘raised the spectre of permanent standing armies that might be turned against the British people rather than their enemies’.  Hence British naval power could be equated with civil liberty, since an island nation with a strong navy to defend it could afford to dispense with a standing army which, since the time of Cromwell, was seen as a threat and a source of tyranny.

At the time it appeared, the song was not a celebration of an existing state of naval affairs, but an exhortation.  Although the Dutch Republic, which in the 17th century presented a major challenge to English sea power, was obviously past its peak by 1745, Britain did not yet ‘rule the waves’, although, since it was written during the War of Jenkin’s Ear, it could be argued that the words referred to the alleged Spanish aggression against British merchant vessels that caused the war.  The time was still to come when the Royal Navy would be an unchallenged dominant force on the oceans.  The jesting lyrics of the mid-18th century would assume a material and patriotic significance by the end of the 19th century.

‘Rule, Britannia!’ is often written as simply ‘Rule Britannia’, omitting both the comma and the exclamation mark, which changes the interpretation of the lyric by altering the punctuation.  The repeated exclamation ‘Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves!’ is often rendered as ‘Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!’, changing the meaning of the verse.  This addition of a terminal 's' to the lyrics is used as an example of a successful meme.

The change from ‘Britannia, rule the waves’ to ‘Britannia rules the waves, occurred in the Victorian era, at a time when the British did rule the waves and no longer needed to be exhorted to rule them. The Victorians changed ‘will’ to ‘shall’ in the line ‘Britons never shall be slaves’.

The song assumed extra significance in 1945 at the conclusion of World War II when it was played at the ceremonial surrender of the Japanese Imperial Army in Singapore.  A massed military band of Australian, British and American forces played as Supreme Allied Commander Louis Mountbatten, 1stEarl Mountbatten of Burma arrived.