Thread by @jwahjwah

@TanjaBueltmann I lived in Germany for over 23 years mainly working alongside British forces. Signs of WW2 all around where I lived: Bergen-Belsen, Iron Curtain, Berlin Wall, bullet marks. In that time I saw Germany reunite & finally shake off the shackles of its WW2 identity. /1

@TanjaBueltmann In 2005 I came back to a UK still not able to move on. We won, but we never got over it. We never got over losing the empire either. We never fully embraced the benefits of our EU membership. In short, we never grew up, constantly reliving only victories mis-rememberes. /2

@TanjaBueltmann We never moved on. We, especially the English, had an identity crisis. To say one was proud to be English actually meant proud to be white English. Many don't want to be associated with that, no matter how much they actually love their country. /3

@TanjaBueltmann Scots, Welsh & Irish don't have this problem. The far right have groomed us into accepting racism as normal. Brexit legitimises it. The far right further exploits it & stirs up tribalism & division. /4

@TanjaBueltmann So here we are. Not having learned the lessons of the past, sleepwalking into a situation which is starting to repeat the ghastly mistakes of the past. But don't mention the war. /5

@TanjaBueltmann The saddest thing of all is the lost opportunity to break away from this & become a confident outward looking European union of 4 nations, individual but sharing a common outlook as a full EU member taking our rightful place in the world being who we are. We have lost our way. /6

@TanjaBueltmann Of course we all want our team to win. But it's just a game of football (bottom line). I hope we do win. But can we do that without all the insanity that's likely to follow? I'm not sure we've grown up enough to do that.