Today’s victory for the Gurkhas is a victory against the long tide of narrow nationalism which has beset Britain for more than twenty years. It is a simple matter of honour that men who have risked their lives for this country should be allowed to settle here. The argument against — the only argument, though never a good one — was that giving rights to Gurkhas would run against perceived public opposition to granting residence in Britain to anyone at all who was not born here.
A government of principle should have given these rights whether or not they were popular simply because they were right. But now the government has been forced to see that the public does care about rewarding honourable service honourably.
Let us hope that — in these crisis stricken days — Great Britain will rediscover those values of honour for which it was once known the world over. Britain is great not by being an uncompromising fortress against the world, but by paying its debts.
