It’s been another day of useless and stupid political
discourse in the UK. Today, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell comes under fire for
calling Winston Churchill a “villain” for his decision to send in soldiers to
break up striking miners in Tonypandy, South Wales, as home secretary in 1910 –
1911. In response, Sir Nicholas Soames, Tory MP and grandson of Churchill,
referred to McDonnell as a “third
rate, Poundland Lenin” who was only making the statement in order to gain
publicity. If that were the case, it certainly worked. Theresa May and Boris Johnson
rushed to the defence of Churchill, with Johnson declaring on
Twitter “"Winston Churchill saved this country and the whole of Europe
from a barbaric fascist and racist tyranny and our debt to him is incalculable…
JM should be utterly ashamed of his remarks and withdraw them forthwith.".
The argument has become so heated that Tory MP Robert Halfon even requested an “emergency debate”
on Churchill in Parliament.
McDonnell’s quote came in response to a question posed in a Q&A
with Politico: “Winston Churchill,
hero or villain?”. Given the simplicity of the question, McDonnell was almost
forced to answer unequivocally; in Tonypandy, Churchill was the villain. He did later
clarify that Churchill was a “hero” in the war.
Now I would like to suggest, and bear with me here, that both
responses might be correct. Is it not possible that the “greatest
Briton who ever lived” is also the man who enthusiastically
supported British concentration camps in South Africa during the Boer War?
Is it not possible that the man who led Britain at a time when the Empire was
on the brink of collapse did his utmost to defend the UK, even
at the expense of the colonies?
There is no such thing as a hero or villain. There are only
public figures who make decisions that benefit some, often at the expense of
others. Good people do bad things, bad people occasionally do good things, and
those of us who fall squarely in the “average” category will keep doing both.
The world is not black and white. And we should not treat it as such.
Reducing Winston Churchill to a “hero” or a “villain”
deprives us of the ability to rationally evaluate the decisions that he made
as a leader. When we talk about someone as influential as Churchill we should
be able to do so objectively, or we risk historical revisionism. Take Nobel
laureate Aung
San Suu Kyi, a peace icon and Burmese national hero who later stooped
to the depths of inhumanity in her tacit support for ethnic cleansing of
the Rohingya in Rakhine. Her past triumphs should not justify her current
crimes. Nor should Churchill’s status as a British hero make him immune to
criticism.
This debate serves as a distraction to the looming debacle
of Brexit currently hanging over the UK. But in case you were worried that the
Churchill scandal was preventing Parliament from making serious progress in
Brexit negotiations don’t worry, Tory MP Andrea Leadsom and SNP MP Pete Wishart
found time to spar on the issue through some Valentine’s
poems…
What has happened to debate? In the Twitter age, it appears
to be easier to launch a personal attack against someone with an opposing view
than to consider their argument and respond with a reasonable critique. When the
Brexit
negotiations in the UK parliament look more like point-scoring exercises
than meaningful discussions on how best to secure a deal, we have to start to
question where it all went wrong. If we lose the ability as a society to debate
the legacies of our most important public figures, or the content of the policies
that will shape our country for decades to come, then we lose the ability to
meaningfully come together to find solutions to our biggest issues.
You may or may not agree with John McDonnell. You might
think I’m wrong to criticise those who responded angrily to his comments. You
might also be pro-deal, be happy to leave the EU without a deal, want a second
referendum or have no idea what it is that you want from the Brexit madness
anymore. That’s good. That’s normal. Let’s take a breather and ask why we’re so
upset. Let’s talk about it.
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