Standing on the white cliffs of Dover on a good day, you can look across the English Channel and just about see the French coast.
It’s no coincidence that these cliffs are a part of the national mythology. All monuments on the coast either refer to the valiant struggle of World War Two or hark back to the Roman era and the Anglo-Saxons.
The white cliffs of Dover are England’s frontline with mainland Europe. But this is not just down to geography.
Dover Castle still has its guns pointed towards France for tourists to photograph. Meanwhile, the castle has an impressive trebuchet pointing inland towards the town.
It’s almost as if the past occupants expected a native uprising sooner or later.
It was in 2017 that some locals erected a gigantic effigy of Theresa May wearing a Union flag dress giving France two fingers. Somehow I doubt this structure was double-sided to make sure May was also giving the English the V sign.
Yet that is the tradition of English rulers since time immemorial.
The white cliffs of Dover, as beautiful as they are, as comforting as they might be to patriots, are a part of a worldview and not just the edge of an island-nation.
These cliffs are the first thing sea-faring migrants would see of England, including our ancestors the Anglo-Saxons.
It’s now the imaginary borderland for English nationalists who fantasise about dangerous foreign hordes reaching these shores in dinghies.
But this is also where the dreamscape ends.
The full article can be read at The Battleground.
Joshua White 