NO MAN IS AN ISLAND - VOTE REMAIN

Those Brexiters that would have us leave Europe, shut our door on our neighbours, and reject those of other creeds and colours often quote England’s history and sovereignty to back up their claims. “We are the English, a proud and victorious nation” they tell us......”we have won World Wars and don’t need others, we are better alone”. But we always need others – we are not and cannot be alone in the world, no matter how much we desire it or however hard we try. We cannot cut ourselves off from the rest of humanity.

And, Brexiters will conveniently forget great English figures from our great history who, like poet John Donne, would reject their divisive and inward looking ideas. Donne – one of England’s greatest poets - was a lawyer, Dean of St Paul’s, Royal Chaplain, Secretary to the Keeper of the Great Royal Seal, a Member of Parliament, and he fought with Sir Walter Raleigh against the Spanish at Cadiz and in the Azores. He was our history personified - one of the greatest figures in our island's story and he told us, in a few lines of his great poetry and with some of the greatest words in the English language, things about what it is to English and about mankind and humanity itself. Things that Brexiters either don’t understand or conveniently forget:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

Written in 1624 and one of his “Meditations” (No XVII) we would, everyone of us, be well advised to remember Donne’s great words when we put our crosses on our referendum ballot papers on Thursday. No matter how much we wish it we cannot cut ourselves off from the rest of mankind. We cannot deny our fellow human beings be they French, Syrian, white, black, brown, straight, gay, Afghan, German, Muslim, Sikh, Jew, Hindu, Polish, Turkish, or any other race, colour or creed – to do so, as Donne suggests, diminishes ourselves because by our very existence and being we are all part of and “involved in mankind”. Whenever we point the finger of disdain, dismay, rejection or revulsion at other members of the human race, whenever we turn love of our country or love of our beliefs into a twisted loathing of other countries and other beliefs then we also point that same twisted finger at ourselves.......”therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.”

Donne's great lines, although written almost half a millennia ago, speak to us across the years and across the great spread of English history; they are the ultimate rebuke to all those 21st century Little Englanders who would drag us away from the rest of mankind.

Vote to Remain in Europe and by doing so confirm that you are also part of the greater body of the human race as well as part of the story of England's great history.