An excerpt from the latest edition of The Round Table – The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs.
An opinion piece by W.P. Kirkman. [Opinions expressed in blogs on this website do not reflect the position of the Round Table.]
Many of the issues that lay behind the campaign to leave the EU were issues which have for years been hovering in the background in the UK, notably the issue of immigration. It is a matter on which much thinking by UK citizens is profoundly negative, and profoundly ignores the needs of people who have suffered from persecution and have been seeking safe havens. Again, to take a historical perspective, we need to remember the huge need, in the Nazi era, to provide safety for persecuted Jews.
What can we now do? What ought we to do?
Surely, one crucial thing is to remind ourselves, and our fellow citizens, that one of the great strengths of the UK has been its international nature. That means, of course, that we should always look outwards, and never allow ourselves to be inward-looking. We should certainly not allow ourselves to have our attitudes decided, and dictated, by those who have shown themselves to be simply anti-European.
