Nearly 2,500 British men and women went to Spain in the 1930s to fight for democracy against the forces of fascism. Many of them lost their lives there, but their memory remains. The gratitude and the tribute of the Spanish democrats to those heroes lingers on. We admire you for that.
What a heavy price we paid for that defeat. Not only in terms of the precious lives that were lost. My country ensued 40 years of brutal dictatorship, a really difficult transition to democracy and a late and incomplete integration in the European project. For those who fought against the dictatorship, Europe was then an ideal of freedom, of the political and civil liberties that we lacked. It was a symbol of modernization, of progress, of social rights, of the welfare state.
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