The Tribune

IN the US it is called soccer. Elsewhere in the world it is known as football, and in Britain it carries the affectionate sobriquet of the “beautiful game” which folklore suggests was a phrase first coined by the Brazilian footballer, Pele, known as perhaps the most famous footballing hero of them all. Whatever name is applied, the sport is currently in the spotlight because the quadrennial European international men’s football championships are now taking place. They are called Euro2020 because they were supposed to have been held last year but were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Today is significant for millions of football supporters in both England and Germany because, during the course of it, the two countries will face off in the knockout round of the last sixteen of the tournament. After successfully navigating their way through their respective group matches, they will now be battling for

a place in the quarter-finals. What is more, the match will be played at the iconic Wembley Stadium in London which was the venue for the epic struggle between the two countries in the final of the World Cup in 1966 that went right down to the wire but ended with a memorable win for England.

Of course, there have always been other fine national football teams in Europe, but there is something special about the historic rivalry between Germany and England, which, like Scotland and Wales, is always represented separately rather than being part of a British combined team. In the intervening fifty-five years since England’s World Cup victory, the outcome of matches between the two has been clearly in favour of the Germans who, overall, have won four football World Cups and have been champions of Europe three times while 1996 has been England’s solitary success. So, Germany has been a world-beater for years and that has inspired the old joke about the definition of football being twenty-two

men chasing a ball around for ninety minutes and then Germany always winning.

Nonetheless, there has always been a keen competitive edge about encounters on the pitch between these two sides which have invariably been close, with the outcome often being decided by penalties when the scores have been level at the end the match.

The record shows that – in the intimidating heat of battle, under the glare of the TV cameras and millions watching as individual players take free shots at goal with only the goalkeeper to beat – the Germans have been better than their English opponents. Famous examples were the World Cup semi-final in 1990 when Germany prevailed over England through penalties, and the semi-finals of the Euros in 1996 when the current England manager, Gareth Southgate, infamously missed his penalty shot and Germany went on to win the final and emerged as European champions.

As for the result of today’s match, the current German team is said to be a shadow of the great champions of the past while England

has made steady if unspectacular progress at the group stage of Euro 2020. Be that as it may, another stirring struggle is on the cards and the outcome is hard to predict.

For some people, all this leads on to reflection about the broader significance of international football which is said to be more than just the game on the pitch. Many believe it has a wider dimension since it manifests a variety of emotions, passions, loyalties and attitudes based on a mix of history, patriotism and current relationships.

Agreeing to bury the past while battling it out on the football pitch, the differences between Germany and England are well known. The latter is perhaps more of a nation of freedom and tolerance with an emphasis on personal responsibility and a sense of humour while Germany tends to be more regimented, disciplined and wedded to what has been described as ‘inflexible perfectionism’ and a preoccupation with ‘correctness’. There is also a genuinely different view about nationalism. It is hardly surprising that, after the horrors of Nazism during the 1930s that led to war, nationalism is seen in Germany as a source of shame and it is fiercely opposed. So, many there regard the constraints on nationhood through the European Union as a means of preserving peace and boosting prosperity while in Britain those who voted to leave the bloc see it as a threat to national rights.

There are those who discount such deeper considerations because they believe that what happens on the field of play is the only thing that matters. Despite the warnings about the current German team’s supposed inadequacies, its superior record in numerous earlier matches means that England remains the underdog for today’s meeting. That said, there seems to be a general expectation that the rivalry between them will ensure another memorable encounter. The anticipation is said to be palpable. Let’s just hope it does not go to penalties again!

FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF UK BREXIT REFERENDUM

In December last year, I wrote about Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s signature of a trade deal with the European Union – the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement – after a long and gruelling period of intense negotiations. This deal may be unsatisfactory in certain respects, but I suggested then that it ought to mark the end of the great Brexit war and, to the relief of everyone, this vexatious issue would no longer be top of the news agenda. But, unsurprisingly, the subject was back on the front pages again last week because June 23 was the fifth anniversary of Britain’s 2016 referendum on the nation’s future relationship with the EU – and, since this has attracted much new publicity, it might be interesting to offer some comment.

The Brexit issue has dominated political discourse in the UK to such an extent that it feels more like fifty years rather than five since the unexpected vote to quit the EU. As a reminder, 52 percent voted to leave and 48 per cent to stay, in a high turnout. So a small but clear majority rejected the advice of the then Prime Minister David Cameron and his colleagues, who scared everybody with their so-called Project Fear about the threat to the country’s economy. Despite these warnings, some of which were later exposed as lies, a majority opted for what they saw as the nation’s freedom from the tentacles of an EU which was continuing its quest for ever closer political integration towards a federal super state.

The referendum result was contested by Remainers who included many MPs seeking to overturn it. But it was heavily supported in the General Election of December 2019, which gave the Tories a thumping 80-seat majority and left no one in any doubt that a majority of electors favoured Brexit and a return to full sovereignty.

In a statement to mark the fifth anniversary, Boris Johnson has said ‘this government got Brexit done and we’ve already reclaimed control over our money, laws, borders and waters’ – and, according to the most recent polls, some Remainers are now saying that, if asked again, they would vote to leave.

That does not mean, of course, that the debate is finally over. The case for and against EU membership is finely balanced, as is shown by the relatively narrow margin of the referendum and only time will tell whether the government’s vision of a thriving global Britain, trading freely with the rest of the world, will be achieved. But the signs are positive in relation, for example, to fresh levels of inward investment and to a series of new bilateral international trade deals; and the UK’s successful rollout of its COVID-19 vaccination programme has been remarkable compared to what has been described as a shambles in Brussels.

Furthermore, it is reported that there are new streamlined rules for business in the pipeline compared to the EU’s complex rulebook. However, disagreement remains with the EU over issues like the Northern Ireland Protocol and fishing rights and it is partly the case that obstacles have arisen because of the belligerent stance of the EU in its alleged determination to punish Britain for leaving the bloc lest other members should see it derived benefit from doing so.

Looking at this five years after the referendum, it appears that the British people had come to the conclusion that they did not want to be governed any longer by others. The European Economic Community, known as the Common Market, which Britain formally joined in January 1973, developed into the European Union. One effect was to give EU law supremacy over UK national or domestic law, which, in the view of many, was no longer acceptable – so, at the risk of oversimplifying the issue, it seems that the public have welcomed a return to full self-government under the nation’s well established system of parliamentary democracy.

To rehash a quotation that caught my eye while researching this issue, one cannot help thinking that Brussels has forgotten the words of one of the founding fathers of a new Europe who told the National Press Club in Washington as long ago as 1952 that ‘we are not combining states, we are uniting them’.

PASSING OF AN AFRICAN POLITICAL ICON

The death earlier this month at the age of ninety-seven of Kenneth Kaunda, the long-serving first President of Zambia from 1964 to 1991, seems to have received little media attention this side of the Atlantic. But he was a highly significant figure in African politics. Not only did he dominate his country politically but he was revered for his immense contribution to the decolonisation process, particularly in southern Africa.

Having led the British territory of Northern Rhodesia to independence in 1964 as the new state of Zambia, at the height of his political power during the 1970s Kaunda was faced with a particularly difficult period for his country after the white minority government in the then Rhodesia (formerly Southern Rhodesia) declared independence unilaterally in 1965.

As a landlocked country, Zambia depended on transport links through Rhodesia for both its exports – mainly copper – and its imports. Being a political pragmatist, he accepted that his country had to live in peace with this neighbour and with apartheid South Africa. However, that did not stop him from joining with President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania in the struggle by the OAU (Organisation of African Unity) against colonialism and apartheid.

They were the leading members of what became known as the “front line states” who played an important role in working successfully with Britain to bring white minority rule to an end in Rhodesia – which became the independent state of Zimbabwe in 1979 – and in maintaining pressure on the government of South Africa to release Nelson Mandela from prison and scrap apartheid.

Kenneth Kaunda was involved in politics as early as the 1950s when he was a key figure in opposing Britain’s ill-fated plans for a federation of the two Rhodesias and Nyasaland (now Malawi). He then governed his country for nearly thirty years. However, unlike so many leaders in Africa who have refused to relinquish power, he stepped down when he was voted out of office in 1991. He was considered a pioneer of African independence and – as a man of exceptional vision, strength and courage – a hero of his time.