Thoughts from an expatriate - an expatriate who feels ignored and shelved by the Government of Britain on this most important day when all elderly Britons remember the homeland of their youth.
Yes, I watched the remembrance parade pass the Cenotaph. Yes, I watched it from eight hundred miles away. Television brings Britain to my salle de séjour in France, as it brings it the millions of expatriates across the world. What then does Remembrance Day mean to me?
I remember when I was eight and Hitler’s bombs dropped around me and on me. We lived in those early years of World War II in a small terraced house that had a view of one of the main arterial roads from Kent into London. I remember in the days before the Blitz, my mother talking to me as she and I sat close to the bedroom window which looked upon the road., ‘What” she said to me “shall we do if the Germans come?” “They can’t all be bad. They’re all some mother’s sons” she said, as she touched me. Later they came not in person, but overhead in planes and they dropped their bombs. Thirty terraced houses were destroyed and the view from the shattered window became panoramic. I remember my brother leaving the next day to join, under age, the RAF, and then serving in Cyprus and Italy. He now sleeps and breathes in a home for the mentally sick in Northfleet.
The parade brings silence to myself and my wife. The remembrance of young lives lost. There is also a sense of pride that Britain stood for a time alone against a small minded tyrant who dragooned the young men in Germany against the rest of Europe.
Throughout Europe and indeed the World at this time on November 11th at the 11th hour, there are still British people yearning for the cause of British Pride. But these British people are at the very least, ignored, and at worst scorned, by the insular minded politicians and I can add the insular minded civil servants who advise them, those who manage the British Nation.
The feeling of despair which comes upon me when I sense the lack of understanding by the politicians, of the British Character which brought us through the War and have since upheld what have been called ‘British Values’ throughout the world, brings to my mind the words of the hymn.
When wilt thou save the people?
O God of mercy, when?
The people, Lord, the people,
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
O God of mercy, when?
The people, Lord, the people,
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
The politicians speak of the needs of Britain. But Britain does not exist – outside of its citizens, the people. The people of Britain are spread across the world. These expatriates are ambassadors of the values of British civilisation. That is their role, their job! These citizens of Britain should be heard. Their voices should not be silenced, but listened to and respected, by the politicians in London.
Give us a voice, and we can continue the job! - www.votes-for-expat-brits.com
LEST WE FORGET
ReplyDeleteRemembrance Sunday still has such an emotional affect on millions of people that suffered the loss of family and friends particularly in the 2nd world war. (but not forgetting those of the other wars since). They stood proud, remembering their lost ones and what they achieved.
Referring to the WW2 losses. The words “we will remember them” still have such a special meaning and will, I hope, always have that in generation after generation far into the future.
We should also remember the millions that lived through those war years battling against the bombing to keep the supplies rolling out to support our troops on land, in the air and on the seas. They worked hard, long hours and often in poor conditions to help keep Britain free. After the war they, and the returning forces, still battled on to get the country back on its feet. They did not do it for reward or medals. They did it for the country.
Now retired many of those men and women now suffer the loss of freedom that they fought so hard to obtain, the freedom of choice of where to spend their hard earned retirement.
Those politicians, both past and present, stood with their heads bowed, remembering those dead hero’s.
Hypocritically though they will not remember the battle that those who survived fought in getting Britain back on its feet.
Many of these later eventually moved overseas to work and then enjoy their retirement. Today there are roughly 1.1 million UK pensioners living abroad. More than half of them receive the full uprated UK state pension they all of us paid for. The other half million or so do not. Government after British Government have refused to pay this discriminated half million the annual indexed increases to their pensions that they also paid for too. Their pensions are frozen to that of the day they moved to some overseas countries. Yes, those veterans now in their late 80's and 90's receive less than half of what other pensioners in the same age group receive in the UK and in some other countries like Israel, Germany and the U.S.A. These disadvantaged “veteran” pensioners fought for freedom for all in Britain, but those hypocritical British politicians for over 50 years have taken that freedom of choice to where the pensioner might retire .
The British Government says “we cant afford the £620million to uprate each year those pensions”. Yet this same Government can afford the £1 billion to delay the increase in age to receive the state pension. It is delayed so that some 30,000 women will not have to wait an extra 2 years to get their pensions. As frozen pensions have been in effect for 60 years or so thousands of pensioners have been waiting for up to 20 or 30 years to get their full and fair indexed linked pension entitlement.
With typical political fanfare at the end of the Conservative conference they announce that £850 million has been found to help freeze council tax plus another £250 million boost for weekly bin collections. Nothing was set aside for those frozen pensioners. Mr Duncan Smith said “ the government faces the challenge of rebuilding society and restoring aspirations and hope to people who have been left behind for too long”. Is 60 years of frozen pensions not “far too long?”
The National Insurance Fund was set up as the “current account” for the N.I. Scheme, holding sufficient funds to even out fluctuations in the movement of contributions and benefits and to provide a source of funds to meet exceptional demands----. The commission for the reduction of Debt quoted the balance to currently be £40+billion. Uprating frozen pensions surely is an exceptional demand that can be clearly accommodated in that £40+ billion.
We expatriate British, will also always remember and honour the dead from all wars. Why cant the politicians remember the remaining living, many of whom that also fought for Britain?
Please sign the e-petition on the government web site http://bit.ly/BritPensions