From the Western Morning News, 9 July 2002
I must say that I am appalled by MP Kate Hoey’s comments regarding the inclusion of Adolf Hitler in the NO campaign video about the euro. It should not be surprising that the use of such an image causes offence to those who lost relatives in the mass murders that he instigated.
To use the phrase “get a life” in the context of so many lost lives is surely a misjudgement unworthy of a Member of Parliament.
Considering the video itself, the inclusion of Hitler is surely misplaced for a different reason. European integration, of which I am a supporter, was conceived precisely to prevent his kind of aggressive nationalism, not to enhance it.
Lord Lothian, perhaps the chief inspiration behind the British federalist movement, was prompted to write “Pacifism is not enough” as a result of his encounters with Hitler as a diplomat. Altiero Spinelli, founder of the Italian federalist movement, was imprisoned because of his opposition to Mussolini.
Across Europe, those who admire Hitler are opposed to the EU and the euro rather than being supporters of it. The racist tendency in politics is on her side of the argument, not mine.
Richard Laming
Director, Federal Union