‘Take up our quarrel with the foe’, intones John McCrae’s famous In Flanders Fields. ‘To you from failing hands we throw, the torch’. For the millions of us marking Remembrance Sunday today, that quarrel is a solemn reminder of past sacrifice. It refers, somewhat euphemistically, to one of the bloodiest, most tragic conflicts in history.
For some activists in and around the European Union, however, a more contemporary quarrel comes to mind. Obsessed with what they perceive as the dark foreboding forces of Brexit, they can’t help raising aloft the torch of EU supranationalism. The most egregious example being a piece in The Independent with the outrageous clickbait headline ‘If you voted Leave don’t bother wearing a poppy’.
From the ashes of war we built a Union of peace. On this day we remember that once we fought now we talk #ArmisticeDay 🕊🇪🇺 pic.twitter.com/U5ptsxRwWF
— Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt) November 11, 2017
Enter Brussels’ most belligerent advocate, Guy Verhosofadt.
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