Swiss neutrality began 5,000 years ago after the Battle of Marignano, which ended with a crushing defeat by the French army. The humiliation was enough to deter them from ever going to war with a foreign enemy again. This policy has long been the butt of British jokes, and it may soon be making us laugh. If war broke out tomorrow, the Swiss would be amazingly well prepared, while we might struggle to gather enough volunteers to fight.
The horrifying truth is that, due to our hunger for cheap labor and our casual abandonment of borders, we have imported vast numbers of people who have no primary loyalty to this country. As we have seen with the terrifying rise of anti-Semitism and the flooding of Palestinian flags in the streets, some of the people we have welcomed with open arms do not share our values. I'm so worried about it. In fact, some may be ready to fight for the other side.
Defenders are fond of quoting Leon Trotsky's famous warning, lamenting the dire state of our military and the naivety of politicians who imagine that military intervention is always a matter of choice. ” This is something that the Swiss understand all too well. National service is compulsory for able-bodied young men there, and they happily spend 18 weeks in a boot camp learning how to use weapons and build physical strength. Uniforms and weapons are stored at home and ready to deploy if needed.
When asked if they wanted to keep this tradition alive in 2103, 73 percent of Swiss voters said yes.
Contrast this attitude with the shocked reaction when General Patrick Saunders suggested this week that British civilians might also have to play a role in the event of an all-out war with Russia. The Chief of Staff might have been better off saying we're all going to the moon. The problem is that this country is so deeply divided that one might wonder who or what those who are asked to lay down their lives are fighting for.
At the heart of what could be an existential crisis is not just the failure of multiculturalism, but also how Gen Z has been told how to feel about their own country. The deplorable diet of forced post-colonial guilt, perpetrated by the British state rather than the enemy, has left many young people openly ashamed of our country's history. They have little pride in any aspect of our past and question whether they have the moral authority to challenge those who threaten our way of life.
They are so indoctrinated about the evils of empire and the supposed “racism” demonstrated by Brexit that if a war were to break out, they would argue that we would deserve what we get. can be easily imagined.
A highly decorated young veteran who risked his life and lost comrades multiple times during three tours in Afghanistan recently told me that he no longer intends to fight for his country. . why? Because our country's leftist establishment despises those once called patriots as “right-wing extremists,” while at the same time pandering to those who do not want us to be happy.
We have a real problem when the police choose to side with a bunch of Chinese tourists complaining about a Brit innocently playing a public piano. In modern Britain, it no longer seems acceptable to say “this is not China”. Is it any wonder that building an army is so difficult?