On 30 September 1938, Neville Chamberlain (then, the British Prime Minister) returned from a meeting with Adolf Hitler. He is famously pictured holding a piece of paper aloft, and he can be seen on newsreel footage saying:
This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine. Some of you, perhaps, have already heard what it contains but I would just like to read it to you: ‘ … We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.
Later that day, outside Downing Street, he was quoted:
My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.
“Peace for our time” was previously uttered by Disraeli (another British PM) after a meeting with Germany in 1878. You’d need to be a very dumb (or a Brexit voter) to not know what happened next in both cases.
Cut to 79 years later, and Theresa May cosied up with Donald Trump last week on an official visit. Trump made some noises that would have been music to May’s ears – about Brexit being good, and stuff like that. After she left, and while she was travelling to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey (a Muslim country, you understand, though you won’t if you’re a Brexiter), Trump announced his ban on Muslims entering the USA. Theresa May refused to comment for several days, until we were fed a snippet where she had pretty much been forced to say she “[did] not agree” with the policy.
I’m just saying.