Dear Orkney News,

I started this week watching some of the events to mark the 75^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945 and an end to the Nazi Holocaust that had led to the extermination of over six million people, mainly Jews but Roma Gypsies, Christians and many more.

What these events should bring home to every person on this planet, especially to those who claim adherence to most faiths is that nowhere that I know of in any of the ‘Holy Books on Beliefs and Behaviour’ of the world’s major religions, except for the rantings and writings of some misguided fundamentalists of many different religions who call for the annihilation of people of a different religion.  What happened in Auschwitz and many other camps to the Jewish people of Europe must serve as a lesson to all who call themselves ‘civilized’ and must never be forgotten, especially India and by the UN.

These acts of Remembrance starting the week bringing me to Brexit on Friday and I remembered the efforts of post WW2 leaders who vowed to make Europe a better place by bringing European Nations together, starting with the Council of Europe.

Giants like Konrad Adenauer, himself a prisoner of the Nazis, Robert Schuman, France, Paul-Henri Spaak, Belgium, Alcide de Gasperi, Italy, Ernest Bevin and Winston Churchill much to the chagrin of some Tories.  Their efforts had been frustrated by the Soviets shutting-off all land access to the Allied Zones of Berlin but as we know the Allies responded with a massive airlift to supply the residents of West Berlin, totting-up over 300,000 flights between 1948/49 which would be a major achievement today with modern Air Traffic Control.  The other and completely unintended spin-off was that it endeared the Allies to the defeated German in the street, I remember a Berliner telling me, “In 1945 those planes were blowing and burning us to bits, yet months later they were risking their lives to feed us and keep us warm.”

The Soviets admitted defeat on the 12^th May 1949 and the Council of Europe was agreed on the 12^th August 1949.  From this we progressed to the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) but even by this stage some now well-known anti-Europe ‘Red Tops’ were stirring-up their ‘Little-Englander’ approach to Europe and were still at during Brexit.  One of them, being the posh ‘Red-Top’ that had advocated support for Nazi Germany in the mid 30’s!!!

The UK never joined the ECSC or it’s natural evolution the European Economic Community (EEC) for by this time the UK was a financial and industrial mess.  Eventually the UK was allowed in but the SNP had grave doubts about the Common Agriculture and Fisheries Policies (CAP & CFP) but as other social benefits including workers rights were introduced the SNP saw that there were real benefits for all and right up to the end we hoped that the CAP & CFP could be renegotiated but Wastemonster was determined to  protect the City of London Casino which always trumped any other proposal.

I will not be celebrating on Friday night and I will not be listening to more lies from Bojo, Farage or that pretendie Scot, Gove who cited his reason for ditching the EU that it caused his step-father to lose his fish business when the truth was that Gove senior sold-up, just another lie.  I will be sorry to see the end of ‘Freedom of Movement’, the ban on ‘Genetically Modified Food’, the end of the Erasmus scheme and much, much more but most of I will worry about the almost inevitable damage to the Belfast Agreement.

I will continue to proudly fly my EU flag and as 23:00hrs strikes I will be belting-out ‘Ode to Joy’ as high as my amplifier will go and look forward to the day that SCOTLAND REJOINS the EU as an INDEPENDENT EUROPEAN NATION.

Charlie Gallagher,Shetland