Discussion on World War II Justifications

Well, I never understood why fight the Second

World War in the first place.

Well, that's a very, um, fundamental question.

Well, how about the First World War?

Well, let's stick to the Second World War.

No, let's start with the First, which led to the Second.

Well, we, we were on the Second. Um, the, the Second World War, Hitler

would've taken as much as he could have done-

Okay

... as he was showing. And did you really want him to-

Well, Hitler said that 15% of Poland was

once Germany, and it was given to Poland at the Treaty of

Versailles. That was German territory, which Germans said. That was his case.

And by the way, that was true.

Except, except-

And I-

... except the Polish borders had been cut off

by-

I, I, look, I'm not here to p-

... Prussia and Russia-

I'm not, it's not like I'm defending Hitler

... and Austria.

I'm just saying the idea that Hitler just randomly rolled into

Poland is a

lie, and everyone believes it because they know

nothing about the actual facts.

But the truth is, Germany had big pieces of it carved off,

including part

of Prussia, and it was given to this other country.

It infuriated the Germans.

Maybe it shouldn't have, but it did, and that was the justification for it.

The UK had nothing to do with it at all,

and-

Well, we had the Treaty of Alliance

... they destroyed their empire and their country fighting this war-

Yeah

... that they still pretend was a good idea, but it wasn't.

It, it was fundamental. It was, it was the classic good versus

evil.

Has the UK benefited from it?

We did the right thing.

Is it a better country than it was?

To have defeated Hitler, yes.

So the UK is a better country now.

Well, otherwise we-

It's a wealthier country now

... would otherwise we would be speaking

German.

I, who cares? But-

I do

... there are a lot of people in Britain who

can't speak English.

Well, yes.

So it would be nice to have, like, at least a European language spoken in

your

country.

No, I see-

But you don't

... no advantage speaking German over any

other language.

Um, we want to-

But it's-

... speak English. Thank you so much.

But, but the point is-

Uh-

... a war should benefit, if a war is fought with the

children

of your citizens, which it is,

then that war should benefit those citizens.

And it did benefit this country.

In what ways?

Benefited this country.

Can you tell me how?

Uh, but as I said to you, otherwise Germany would eventually have

invaded us.

So you, um, Germany-

But we've had 80 years to assess. Tell me the benefits.

Now sitting 80 years later as the grandson of, I'm s- certain, people who fought in

that war, I am.

Well, my grandfather was, um, too old.

He was in the First World War, or the Second World War, and my father

was too

young. So we-

In a case-

... we sort of missed a generation.

Um-

I'm saying now that we've had it, and as a, as a, a lover of history,

why don't you tell me the ways in which Britain benefited

from, I'm gonna use air quotes here, "winning"

the Second World War? Because from my perspective,

it looks like the Empire ended,

India was lost two years later-

Yes

... the United States took over the world, and has had troops here ever since.

Yes.

You lost your sovereignty and your self-respect.

The, well, we certainly-

And this beautiful country-

We certainly didn't-

... has been destroyed

... we certainly didn't lose our self-respect

over winning the war.

I mean, in terms of self-respect, th- that's a rather ethereal benefit.

Our self-respect was hugely maintained by defeating the greatest evil the world has

known.

Um-

Then why would you allow foreign troops on your soil ever since?

Um, because we wanted to stop the Russians.

Okay. But I mean, it's kind of a prerequisite of sovereignty

and self-respect not

to have foreign soldiers on your soil for 80 years.

The, they're allies. We're NATO together.

Call them whatever you want.

Yeah.

But they're still foreigners on your soil.

Yeah. They're very welcome here.

I, I know. That's the point I'm making.

They're part, they're, they're, but they're part of defending, um,

our shared

interest, which we have. And our shared interest

is the nation state, and

maintaining its integrity, and not having people thinking because

there was

a treaty signed hundreds of years ago, and Poland once had a bit of it that was

Germany, we can now say, "We're gonna take it."

I'm, I'm merely, I'm merely saying-

We cannot, we cannot allow-

You use the phrase nation state-

Well, what then are you... Yes

... but it has no meaning if the nation state has no sovereignty.

This nation state has sovereignty.

It's how-

How can it have sovereignty-

How-

... when it has foreign troops on its soil?

We were able to, um, uh, pull out of the European Union.

That showed us an exercise in sovereignty.

You, well, that's all I'm saying.

No, no.

I was on your side there, and I feel so sad about what happened.

But my point is, if you don't have sovereignty,

if you can't make decisions that

are rooted in the core interest of your own population, then how are you a

nation state?

But we do make interests that are in the core interests of our

population.

Well, you're just telling me that you may need to prepare for a war-

Yes

... on behalf of the territorial integrity of

Ukraine.