We are currently marking seventy five years since the D-Day landings, in  which thousands of people died to liberate Europe from right-wing nationalism.  At the same time, the UK is  trying to leave the European Union, an international body set up precisely to prevent such  military operations ever being necessary again. I doubt I  am the only one who sees a monstrous irony in that. It is utterly tragic. Here we are as a civilisation, decrying the folly of nationalism in one breath and cheering it’s resurgence in the  next. The EU was created in the wake of the second world war to create a Europe-wide forum in which countries could settle their differences peacefully: how can we be even contemplating leaving it and going back to a situation where such barbarities are possible, and where countries see theirselves as  rivals rather than friendly members of a federation? I’m sure many others  will be making this very point today, far more articulately and perceptively than I can (see this for example); but it just staggers me how we, as a society, can be stupid enough allow such nationalism to resurface.