A few thoughts on Brexit, the EU, fishing and chlorinated chicken

Recently - out of boredom and to stop me from losing my mind during the last lockdown - I made an online search, writes Joe Campbell.

It was something like: ‘list all European wars since 1800?’

Just like my history ‘O’ Level, I expected Napoleon and both world wars to come up, plus a few other conflicts dimly remembered from when I hopelessly fought sleep in wee Mr Page’s history classes at the College.

What actually came up floored me. I got a figure of somewhere around 280. Yes, folks, 280 wars. What a placid, harmless, lovely, wee species we are! (And your point, Joe?) Bear with me. I put in another search: ‘Outside of Russia and the Balkans, how many wars since the establishment of the EU?’ And this phrase appeared: ‘Pax Europaea’.

Here’s the actual reference from Wikipedia: “Pax Europaea (English: the European peace - after the historical  Pax Romana ) is the period of relative peace experienced by Europe in the period following World War II - often associated above all with the creation of the European Union (EU) and its predecessors. After the Cold War, this peace was even more evident because of the fall in political tensions, with the major exception of the Yugoslav Wars and various tensions with and within Russia. In 2012, the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Interestingly, one of the few ‘wars’ mentioned after the establishment of the European Union was the ‘Cod’ war, a tussle between Britain and Iceland over fishing rights in the 1970s; hardly the Somme, but who would have thought fish would spark a dispute? Don’t think it’s the fish themselves. I mean most of the fish I’ve met have been civil enough.

But, at the minute, the British are not even completely out of the EU and there is talk of disputes over fishing rights with the French. So, five minutes after some in Britain no longer feel they have anything in common with their European neighbours, already the first row is brewing.

Someone once mentioned to me the fact that our generation was the first in centuries to not have to fight in a European war. Ironic, really, when you think that we lived through the Troubles. But, if the British aristocracy think that this wee Ulsterman is going to fight, up to his oxters, in a muddy trench in defence of British haddock and to defend the honour of Eton…think again, mucker. I’ve other fish to fry!

Now, I know that not everyone is a fan of the EU. I accept that. But look at how just having one thing in common, namely, European citizenship, has saved untold millions of lives, prevented nations, who fought with each other for centuries, slaughtering each other in new wars. Just that one unifying factor, the EU, prevented all that… and shortly, ‘we’ will not be members of that club. Apparently, I will have nothing political or European in common with our Irish Republican neighbours, let alone the French or the Spanish whose hospitality I have come to rely on for my holidays. No, shortly I will be a British citizen only, looking forward to chlorine soaked chickens, Scottish independence and defending the rights of sardines to be English nationalists. That’s if we survive Covid.

So, apart from that, the craic’s fierce.