It’s that time of year when two perennial topics of national debate pop up in the media, both of which have their origins in the First World War.

Every October without fail we have a debate about whether or not to keep daylight saving time, a practice that started in 1916. Then, as soon as the clocks have gone back, we have a debate about wearing poppies.

The first debate is an annual waste of time (no pun intended). The UK government does not have the power to scrap daylight saving time even if we wanted to, because it is controlled by the EU. EU law dictates that all member states will advance their clocks by one hour on the last Sunday in March, and set them back one hour on the last Sunday in October.

Few people are aware of this. As with much of what the EU does, the public are quite deliberately

kept in the dark (no pun intended). Mention this fact to any fanatical Remainer and you will get a textbook example of their inability to accept even observable truth if it doesn’t fit their world view.

“You’re a Brextremist liar. What a load of rubbish. This isn’t true. (And in one bizarre case) The BBC website doesn’t mention this so you need to check your facts.”

It’s as if EU Directive 2000/84/EC doesn’t exist. Ignorance is not just a characteristic of Remainers, it is a requirement. Our media and education system simply do not give people the facts about EU membership, for the simple reason that the more one learns about the EU, the less one likes it. It is no accident that even now, after two years of national debate, perhaps a majority of Remain supporters are entirely ignorant of basic facts about the EU – what it is, why it was created, how it works and where it’s going.

Ignorance is also a requirement for Cultural Marxism to flourish, and the growing popularity of white poppies is an indication of just how much damage it is doing to our once cohesive society. Marxist critical theory demands that all the values, ideas and traditions that bind our society together be critiqued, attacked and undermined. The white poppy is one of countless vehicles used to achieve this.

First introduced by the Women’s Co-operative Guild in the 1930s, the white poppy is now sold by The Peace Pledge Union. This leftist Union could have chosen any symbol to promote peace, if that were their aim. They chose to hijack the poppy, which they no doubt see as promoting the bloodthirsty, white patriarchy that’s responsible for all evils in this world, not because their aim is to promote peace, but to attack our values and history.

A record 125,000 white poppies are expected to be sold this year. Asked why the white poppy is proving so popular, the PPU boss said it was a reaction to the “rise of the far right”. That tells you all you need to know about his motivation, and where your money is likely to go if you buy one. Not to veteran charities, certainly.

Those who criticise the act of wearing a red poppy are not pacifists. They are Marxists who have spotted the poppy as another opportunity to virtue signal and attack our traditions and values.

Our education system bears much of the blame. Rather than turning out well educated citizens, it too often turns out people cut adrift from their country’s history at best, and outright Marxist activists at worst.

A hundred years ago, the students of the day had other things on their minds. Many young men at University put their studies on hold while they went away to fight for their country (something incomprehensible to most students today). Some never came back.

The University of Southampton has a mural in its Senate room which depicts an unknown soldier who has returned from the fighting to receive his degree. Any intelligent, sensitive student could not fail to be moved or inspired by this. Student Union President Emily Dawes saw it rather differently:

“Mark my words – we’re taking down the mural of white men in the uni Senate room, even if I have to paint over it myself.”

Emily did not see in the mural a moving story of lost youth, of potential and ability sacrificed to defend liberty and free speech. Emily saw only skin colour and gender.

Emily is, one assumes, not stupid. She was privately educated. She studied physics at University. She was elected to the paid position of Union President. Yet she views the world through a deeply bigoted lens. A blind ideologue who believes skin colour and gender are defining characteristics.

Emily is far from alone in masking her bigotry as virtue. Earlier this month, Cambridge University Students Union were considering crossing out the phrases ‘British war veterans’ and ‘Poppies’ from Remembrance Day plans. One hundred years ago, if Blackadder is to be believed, the Trinity Tiddlywinkers were leapfrogging their way to the Cambridge recruiting desk to sign up and give the Boche what for. All ten of them died, including Strangely Brown who bought it at Gallipoli and Hugh Laurie’s Lieutenant George who died in the incredibly moving final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth.

How can things have gone so wrong in such a relatively short space of time? Our young people have almost entirely lost the sense of duty, comradeship, patriotism and honour that saw the country through the hell of the 20th Century wars. In their place is a destructive nihilism that claims to want a strong society but in fact attacks and denigrates everything that binds us together and promotes policies such as multiculturalism which, by definition, divide us.

No doubt Emily would mock her forebears for marching to their deaths for ‘King and Country’, but at least King and Country are something. They are friends, family, tradition, culture, society. Better to march for such things, than to march against whoever the Marxist establishment has decreed to be the latest ‘oppressor’.

Emily has marched for the homeless. But in her heart of hearts, was she marching for the homeless, or marching AGAINST capitalism (of which she has undoubtedly been a major beneficiary)? She has been on feminist marches. But was she marching for women or AGAINST men? Has she ever marched for liberty, for individual rights, for free speech? Or has she in fact dealt a brave blow against such things every time she picks up a placard to march for the establishment.

I have always worn a red poppy with pride. Not because I glorify war, but because I honour the sacrifices made by those who went before me. Now I have another reason. To take a stand for all that has true value and meaning against those such as Emily, who blinded by ideology are sawing at the cultural branch we’re sitting on. War is chaos, and it is chaos that Emily and friends are unleashing as they systematically take apart everything that binds us together, be it the nation state, the family, our traditions, history or culture.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email