“An essential element in forming a single electorate is the sense that in the last resort all parts of it stand, or fall, survive or perish, together. This sense the British do not share with the inhabitants of the continent of Western Europe. Of all the nations of Europe Britain and Russia alone, though for opposite reasons, have this in common: they can be defeated in the decisive land battle and still survive. This characteristic Russia owes to her immensity. Britain owes it to her ditch. The British feel – and I believe that instinct corresponds with sound military reason – that the ditch is as significant in what we call the nuclear age as it proved to be in the air age and had been in the age of the Grande Armée of Napoleon or the Spanish infantry of Philip II. Error or truth, myth or reality, the belief itself is a habit of mind which has helped to form the national identity of the British and cannot be divorced from it.”

— Enoch Powell

Speech in Lyons (12 February 1971), from The Common Market: The Case Against (Elliot Right Way Books, 1971), pp. 68-69.
1970s

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Enoch Powell155

British politician 1912–1998

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“The prospect of a Russian conquest of Western Europe is one for which history affords no material. The theory that the Russians have not advanced from the Elbe to the Atlantic because of the nuclear deterrent is not more convincing than the theory that they have not done so because they do not want to do so and have never envisaged, unless perhaps in terms of world revolution, a Russian hegemony in Western Europe… Of all the nations of Europe, Britain and Russia are the only ones, though for opposite reasons, which have this thing in common: that they can be defeated in the decisive land battle and still survive. This characteristic, which Russia owes to her immensity, Britain owes to her moat.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech to The Hague (17 May 1971), from The Common Market: Renegotiate or Come Out (Elliot Right Way Books, 1973), p. 97, p. 100.
1970s

“In the ultimate matter of life and death, survival or defeat, the insular position of the British nation has set us apart from the inhabitants of the adjacent continent. This is a political fact which cannot be pretended out of existence. As long as it remains true, or is believed by the British themselves to remain true, the commitment of Britain to any continental combination can never be total. … True, it has often been rumoured that Britain had lost, or was about to lose, that characteristic; but events have hitherto always proved that she had it still, and those events are the most formative element in the folk-memory of the British people. … This is the reason why Britain, which is in many sense as European as any nation, cannot be integrated politically with the European continent.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Source: Speech to The Hague (17 May 1971), quoted in The Common Market: Renegotiate or Come Out (Elliot Right Way Books, 1973), p. 109

“There is no nation on the Continent of Europe that is less able to do harm to England, and there is no nation on the Continent of Europe to whom we are less able to do harm than we are to Russia. We are so separated that it seems impossible that the two nations, by the use of reason or common sense at all, could possibly be brought into conflict with each other.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Public Addresses http://books.google.pt/books?id=QO0gAAAAMAAJ&q=%22There+is+no+nation+on%22&dq=%22There+is+no+nation+on%22&hl=pt-PT&sa=X&ei=0xzoUseOA6Wp7AbQloGwBw&ved=0CEkQ6AEwBA (1879), p. 459 <br class="br">1870s

“Britain's victories are barren; they leave her poor, and they leave her people hungry; they leave her bereft of the markets and the wealth that she possessed six years ago. But above all, they leave her with an immensely greater problem than she had then. We are nearing the end of one phase of Europe's history, but the next will be no happier. It will be grimmer, harder and perhaps bloodier. And now I ask you earnestly, can Britain survive? I am profoundly convinced that without German help she cannot.”

William Joyce (1906–1946) British fascist and propaganda broadcaster

J.W. Hall (ed.), "The Trial of William Joyce" (Notable British Trials series, William Hodge & Co, 1946), p. 302
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“The western nations of Europe, who now so immeasurably surpass their former savage progenitors, and stand at the summit of civilisation, owe little or none of their superiority to direct inheritance from the old Greeks, though they owe much to the written works of that wonderful people.”

Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

volume I, chapter V: "On the Development of the Intellectual and Moral Faculties during Primeval and Civilised Times" (second edition, 1874) page 141 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=164&itemID=F944&viewtype=image <br class="br">The Descent of Man (1871)

“Russia cannot be understood with the mind alone,
No ordinary yardstick can span her greatness:
She stands alone, unique –
In Russia, one can only believe.”

Fyodor Tyutchev (1803–1873) Russian poet

Russia cannot be understood with the mind alone...

“The key point to bear in mind is that Russia cannot be in Europe without Ukraine also being in Europe, whereas Ukraine can be in Europe without Russia being in Europe.”

Zbigniew Brzeziński book The Grand Chessboard

Source: The Grand Chessboard (1997), Chapter 4, The Black Hole, p. 122.

“The policy of Great Britain is not the policy of alliances with any certain set of nations. It is a policy of friendship with those nations that believe in democratic forms of government and democratic development. The policy of Great Britain now is, and must be, and will be, that all nations in good will, in singleness, and in disinterestedness of heart will meet together, consider the great problems of Europe and the problems of the whole world, and agree, as the result of cooperation, discussion, and joint exchange of opinion, on a common policy which will make alliances absolutely a thing of the past.”

Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) British statesman; prime minister of the United Kingdom

Address to the German Reichstag (15 October 1928), quoted in The Times (16 October 1928), p. 15
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“Democracies owe their existence to national loyalties — the loyalties that are supposedly shared by government and opposition, by all political parties, and by the electorate as a whole. Wherever the experience of nationality is weak or non-existent, democracy has failed to take root. For without national loyalty, opposition is a threat to government, and political disagreements create no common ground.”

Roger Scruton (1944–2020) English philosopher

England and the Need for Nations (2006)

“The affairs of the world do not stand still… I could not go, as the representative of His Majesty's Government, to meeting after meeting of the League of Nations, to conference after conference with the representatives of foreign countries, and say, "Great Britain is without a policy. We have not yet been able to meet all the Governments of the Empire, and we can do nothing." That might be possible for an Empire wholly removed from Europe, which existed in a different hemisphere. It was not possible for an Empire the heart of which lies in Europe and next door to the Continent of Europe, and where every peril to the peace of Europe jeopardised the peace of this country.”

Austen Chamberlain (1863–1937) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1925/nov/18/treaty-of-mutual-guarantee in the House of Commons (18 November 1925). <br class="br">1920s

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