High Peak Liberal Democrats

Anzac Day

This week was ANZAC day when we remember those Australians and New Zealanders who fell fighting during the First World War side by side with British soldiers, and the senseless sacrifices of millions of men and women who died across Europe and the rest of the world. This year will see the one hundredth year anniversary of the First World War and it should give us time to pause and reflect on the tragedies of the first half of the twentieth century.

As we do so, we should recognise the huge achievement that disputes with our neighbours are now solved around EU negotiating tables rather than the trenches, that we trade with Germans, Austrians and Italians rather than war with them. As a country, we can be proud that we have always shown leadership in Europe - during the First and Second World War, when facing down communism in Eastern Europe, and when we enlarged the European Union beyond the Iron Curtain to spread democracy, human rights, the rule of law and economic prosperity across our once fractured continent. It is too easy to forget that only thirty years ago Spain was emerging from Franco's regime, Poland, the Czech Republic and other European countries were under the yoke of communism, and that Riga and Talinn were not city-break destinations but part of the Soviet Union.

We should not forget that the tragedies of the First World War were seen only too recently in former Yugoslavia, the very place that lit the fuse one hundred years ago. We should be proud that genocide and war in the Balkans have been replaced by EU membership for Slovenia and Croatia, and that Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia are all candidates to join. This is the central purpose of the European Union - spreading peace and democracy. As the debate on Britain's membership of the EU grows louder, we would do well to remember these achievements.

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