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thomas davison

George Washington wasn't Britain's greatest foe � but I know exactly who was
By Ed West Politics Last updated: April 16th, 2012

From top left: George Washington; Napoleon Bonaparte; Erwin Rommel; Mustafa Kemal Atat�rk; Michael Collins; and the secret winner

Who was Britain�s greatest enemy? Following the �100 Greatest Britons� format used on the BBC a few years ago, the National Army Museum selected a shortlist of five military foes, and asked a group of historians to nominate their choice before a selected audience. As this paper reports, the audience voted to give the honour to George Washington, ahead of Michael Collins, Napoleon Bonaparte, Erwin Rommel and Mustafa Kemal Atat�rk.

All were military geniuses in their own way, although Collins was the exception in being a guerilla leader. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin might have been the intellectual titans of the American Revolution, but all those ideas buzzing around would have come to naught without Washington�s military leadership. Atat�rk shone at Gallipoli and after the war brilliantly rallied the defeated Turks against the Allies� plan to carve the country up. Rommel and Bonaparte were unquestionably among the greatest military men who ever lived.

Is this list accurate? Further back and before the Union one might also nominate William the Conqueror, Saladin or Joan of Arc. However I can�t help feeling that, in terms of actual damage inflicted on the British, the list contains a glaring omission. Had I been speaking at the museum I would have nominated a man who achieved what Philip II of Spain, Louis XIV and Napoleon all failed to do � who in fact makes their efforts look amateurish.

A man who successfully neutralised the one country that had always stubbornly resisted continental dictatorships. A man who helped unite all the Channel and North Sea ports under one state, historically Britain�s major fear.

A man who broke the close alliance between Britain and those Commonwealth countries whose troops had fought and died for the mother country only 30 years previously, by destroying their trade. Who destroyed Britain�s merchant navy. Who brought the island under the rule of foreign courts, and ended �a thousand years of history� by willingly surrendering Britain's sovereignty to an alien, undemocratic institution. A man who willingly lied and lied again to conceal the true intentions and aims of the foreign power he was working for, all the time saying it was �completely unjustified� that we would �sacrifice independence and sovereignty� by following his lead.

Step forward the Right Honourable Sir Edward Heath KG MBE. Washington, Rommel and Atat�rk have nothing on him. As Cicero wrote: �A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.�

The greatest foe of Britain is the British People itself.

Afterall, it's them who put the likes of Heath, Blair and Brown in power. It's them who voted to stay in the EU in 1975. It's them who support all the nutters who crop up be they raving anarchist lefties or anyone else who wants to take or give away our country or come and live here for nothing.