2019-10-01 BBC World Histories Magazine

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The feeling there is that referendums

require very careful thinking and planning.

So, rather fascinatingly, the Spanish regard

the Britain of 2019 as a political model that

they hugely admired but which has got itself into

a serious predicament.

They’re not talking only about the EU referendum –

they’re also talking about the Scottish independence referen-

dum [held in 2014, and which resulted in Scotland remaining

part of the United Kingdom, although calls have persisted

for a follow-up if Britain leaves the EU]. Their concern is that

a referendum entrenches division within a country in a way

that a general election doesn’t, which is why it’s dangerous.

W hat is the view in Poland?

We spoke to Radosław Sikorski, a former foreign minister

of Poland, who said that British people are taught that they

went to war in 1939 for Poland [the Nazi invasion of which,

in September of that year, sparked the Second World War].

His view is that this just isn’t the case – instead, Britain declared

war and then did nothing as Poland was dismembered. So,

for Polish people, their history with Britain is essentially the

history of the Second World War, and of a series of promises

not kept. For example, Britain was too weak to help 1944’s

Warsaw Uprising, in which the Poles rose against the Germans

as Soviet armies drew near. It’s a story of abandonment.

Their argument is very clear: they saw in 1939, and again

in 1944, that Britain on its own cannot do what it wants to do.

It’s never really been able to control events and has, instead,

always worked with allies. Yet it talks about its own history

without properly referring to the part those allies played in it.

Did the people you spoke to in Poland worry about what

the future might hold?

The big worry now in Poland now is about the future of the

European Union. They still have a memory of what they see

as Britain’s betrayal of Poland to the Soviet Union at the 1945

Yalta Conference [at which world leaders met to discuss the

reorganisation of Europe once the Second World War had

ended; see our Perspectives feature starting

on page 48]. They felt that the EU was the

great hope to protect them against Russia,

and to give them a level of security that

they hadn’t previously had. Their huge worr y is that Britain

leaving will weaken the EU and expose them again to the

danger of domination by Russia.

What other concerns do people in these countries share?

It’s worth remarking, I think, that at no point in any of the

conversations I had in the course of making this series did the

economic aspects of Brexit feature as a question or a concern.

People focused instead on the political contribution that

Britain has made and could continue to make, and what the

Brexit decision is doing to the British constitution. What is it

doing to Britain’s reputation for stability, for pragmatism, for

being able to resolve things in parliament? What is it doing to

the notion of a parliamentary democracy? Those are the key

issues that were raised in all of the countries that I visited.

Many of the people we spoke to have a deep understanding

of the rules of British parliamentary democracy, and appear to

have a much deeper grasp of those areas than many of our own

politicians and commentators. As a result of the confusion of

a referendum and parliamentary democracy, there’s confusion

about where power now lies. Is it

with the people, via referendums,

or with MPs in parliament?

That issue is seen as being

extremely concerning in what

was, for centuries, the model

parliamentary democracy.

The people that I spoke to

regarded those principles and

practices as being at risk – and,

because they feel that Britain

has, for centuries, been such a

model, there is a real worry that

this will have deep significance

for the whole world.

A Second World War

propaganda poster from

Poland. “For Polish people,

their history with Britain

is essentially the history of

the Second World War, and

of promises not kept. It’s

a story of abandonment,”

MacGregor argues

Neil MacGregor is a

historian and former British

Museum director. His books

include Living with the Gods:

On Beliefs and Peoples, set to

be reissued in paperback by

Penguin in October

Listen to As Others See Us

online at bbc.co.uk/

programmes/m0001t91

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