Hello Little Englanders. With a stroke of her (Montblanc) pen, that nice Mrs May has sent us back to the 1970s. Inspired, Derek Bateman wrote an appropriate script.
We are the boys who will stop your little game
We are the boys who will make you think again
So who do you think you are kidding Mr Hitler
If you think old England’s done?
Drill Hall, Walmington-on-Sea.
Capt Mainwaring: Stand easy, men. I have here a piece of paper which represents the freedom of our country from foreign domination. No longer will foreign powers tell us what to do. This is a modern Magna Carta, supported by the Mother of Parliaments in the greatest country the world has ever known. Wilson! Will you pay attention… We have beaten the Hun without a shot being fired. From this day on England will be home to Englishmen and only Englishmen. No swarthy types. No funny languages. No foreign muck to eat. Just good Christian people toiling together in factory and field. And a great many of them called Nigel.
Private Frazer: I’m not called Nigel. What aboot the Scots, eh?
Cpt M: I’m sorry, Frazer. You’re classed as an immigrant. And to be fair, you do speak a funny language and eat foreign muck.
Pte F: Foreign? That’s genuine Scottish haggis, man, made with the entrails and offal of real British blackface sheep.
Cpt M: Blackface, you see? I’m sorry but these are desperate days and there is no place for primitive Pictish types or foreign sheep breeds. Only pure bred English.
Pte Godfrey: I’m not sure but I think my aunt’s cousin was from Wales. Does that count?
Pte Walker, drags on fag: I can get a birth certificate altered for you. Got a mate in the Post Office. He can smudge a postal order to make it look like a zero’s been added.
Cpt M: Never mind that now. And Walker. Put out that cigarette. This represents peace in our time and freedom for our people. We are taking back control. And we’re doing it as Dame Vera celebrates her 100th birthday to remind us of our greatest hour.
Pte W: Our greatest hour? Do you mean Worker’s Playtime on the Home Service? Breaks me up that does.
Sgt Wilson: Yeees. I love it when they play Mantovani string numbers. Sooo romantic.
Pte Pike: Is that why you and mum go into the bedroom to listen to it?
Cpt M: Enough. I need a patrol of our bravest men to take this letter across enemy lines and present it to their leader. It makes clear we don’t want their goods, their money, or their directives. Well, we do in fact, it’s just that we don’t want to pay for it and would rather not get a row from their courts for breaking the rules.
Lance Cpl Jones: I’ll show the fuzzy wuzzies, sir. Just point me in the right direction. Won’t give us a trade, deal, Fritz? Take that. And that. I’d force them to eat our scones and fruit preserves til it’s coming out of their ears. And I’d stop the Germans from seeing our Royal Family on telly.
Cpt M: the Queen IS German, Jones.
L/C Jones: Well her husband isn’t.
Company: No! He’s Greek!
Cpt M: We’re going back to being an island nation, surrounded by sea, this sceptered isle. We will defend ourselves against all foreign invasion.
Pte Godfrey: Oh, I’m afraid I get sea sick, sir. I feel queasy listening to the Navy Lark.
Cpt M: Well, we’re on our own now. We’ll find a trade route from Kent through the North West Passage and import tea through the Suez Canal. Prepare for a generation of poverty and isolation, men. I’ve arranged for us to be entertained at weekends by Miss Katie Hopkins. This will be a long war but there can be only on winner. Smaller, poorer, unhappier and xenophobic maybe, but we will be free. Bayonets fixed! Wait til you see the whites of their eyes. Onwards to Brexit, men. Charge!
