On the 70th anniversary of VE Day, a timely reminder of what unity and collective will can achieve

As Britain wakes this morning to news of winners and losers, there is an added poignancy in remembering this date 70 years ago, when the country celebrated a victory as one; when unity was, for a while, the order of the day.

The Second World War is fading in the world’s collective memory, and yet for those who fought, its awfulness remains fresh in the mind. That a conflict could take the lives of 75 million people or more is hard now to comprehend: no wonder the overriding feeling for many who crowded into Trafalgar Square and other public spaces on 8 May 1945 was relief, even if war in the Pacific remained to be won.

Yet for all its horror, Britons who lived and fought through the war were sustained by a compelling and collective belief that opposing the tyranny of Nazism was the right – indeed the only – course of action. Their shared experience helped to maintain a post-war consensus even as political divisions emerged. There has been nothing remotely comparable since.

Britain’s wars have been divisive; economic ups and down have been felt unequally; moments of common national feeling have been brief and fleeting. British society is arguably more fractured now than at any time since the depression of the 1930s.

The commemorations will, as they always do, focus on the loss of life, the folly of war but also the righteousness of Britain’s cause. We would do well to recall, too, the social and political consciousness which the Second World War gave rise to in this country. It is easily forgotten that domestic policy was widely debated on the Home Front and among service personnel. The 1939-45 conflict threw sections of society together in a way that was both profound and, to a remarkably wide degree, recognised as bringing about change which was likely to last. The Beveridge Report was a taste of things to come. Books and pamphlets on social and economic reform received widespread circulation in the war’s later years, while the 1944 Education Act proved that radical domestic change was possible, even while fighting raged.

The one person who was seemingly oblivious to the public’s appetite for a different and better world was the man who arguably made it possible, Winston Churchill. Sure enough, two-and-a-half months after the celebrations of VE Day, Churchill’s Conservatives were overwhelmingly routed in a general election. Clement Attlee, in an age when an undergraduate degree from Oxford and a serious demeanour were political advantages, went on to lead one of the great reforming governments.

All of this is relevant today of all days, when our political system seems suddenly to face so many difficult questions, and when there is little sense that Britain’s electorate trusts the men and women they have returned to Parliament to come up with meaningful solutions. Perhaps our political process is easier to stomach when democracy has been recently fought for. But it should not take a major conflict to open our eyes to the preciousness of our parliamentary system – and the need to stay engaged with it, despite its flaws.

The other reason why this year’s anniversary of VE Day has particular resonance is that it coincides with a renewed sense of instability and disharmony across Europe. Nationalism of various stripes is on the rise, driven not only by fear of radical Islam but also by a usually ill-defined anti-Europeanism and, perhaps most worryingly of all, that historical demon, anti-Semitism.

VE Day celebrations in Russia will not be attended by British or American leaders, in protest – rightly – at Moscow’s military assistance to rebels in Ukraine. For the Allies whose combined efforts defeated Hitler 70 years ago, relations are now at their lowest ebb since the Cold War. And there is nothing to suggest things will improve.

The financial disasters of the past seven years have endangered European monetary union, perhaps even the entire European project. As economies in China, India and South America continue to roar, parts of Europe have descended to basket-case territory.

It is always dangerous to draw simplistic comparisons between a “golden” generation of yesteryear and a flawed vision of modernity. Even so, as we remember the many who gave their lives in the cause of freedom, we could do worse than to draw on their resourcefulness, their belief in change through politics and their confidence in our United Kingdom, as we face an uncertain future of our own.