The Battle of Britain

Lizzi Collinge Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I thank the hon. and gallant Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) for securing this important debate.

There are few more pivotal moments in our history than the battle of Britain. France had fallen and the new Vichy regime had sued for peace. Britain stared down the prospect of invasion by the German forces. The Nazis already believed that the war was over and that Britain would be forced to recognise its hopeless military situation. Hitler counted on the British Government agreeing to his terms. It was not until months later that the Nazis finally came round to the truth that we would not concede so easily. Hitler had misjudged not only our fighters, but the determination of an entire nation. Against overwhelming odds, 600 British fighters faced more than 1,300 German bombers supported by hundreds of enemy fighters. And they won.

The scale of sacrifice in the battle of Britain was captured best by Churchill, who said:

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”—[Official Report, 20 August 1940; Vol. 364, c. 1167.]

I have spoken in this place before about how victory in war was secured by ordinary people. The same is true, I believe, of remembrance. I pay particular tribute to one of my constituents, Beryl Spelling, who sadly passed away recently. She gave her time supporting the local RAF association, keeping alive the memory of those who served and what they stood for. It was Beryl who first invited me to the annual remembrance service for the battle of Britain, which is held every year in Morecambe.

Remembering our triumphs over fascism naturally leads me to remember what led to that dreadful time. For more than a century prior to that war, Europe had suffered under the clash of extreme nationalistic aspirations. In the wake of the first world war, treaties were signed and agreements were made, but these nationalistic passions flared up once more and fed off the despair and suffering of ordinary people. It was in this environment, while America was facing inwards and Europe was fractured and uncertain, that Hitler was able to exploit fear and mass hysteria.

I would hope that this speech could stay in the realms of history, but I do not believe that the echoes of that time can be ignored today. I feel a moral duty to use my position in this House to bring those echoes into focus. I speak, of course, of the actions of the new far right. The far right will always exploit feelings of fear or insecurity, putting forward a false image of what true patriotism is. I believe we must push back against this false narrative and the lies of the far right. The people who promulgate this distortion entirely fail to see the values that truly bind us together as a nation, such as democracy, fair play, the rule of law, and kindness.

To me, patriotism is not about racial or cultural superiority. It is not ethno-nationalism or the fear of others. It is not hating other people or undertaking violent acts, such as breaking into hotels and trying to make places that should be safe unsafe. It is not the racists who attacked a British nurse or the spreading of false rumours about asylum seekers. It is not exploiting the scourge of violence against women and girls to make gross and false political points. It is not sending people back to the Taliban to be tortured or flogged in the street or to have their basic freedoms taken away merely because of their sex. It makes me ashamed to see a small number—but a number, none the less—of Members of the British Parliament exploiting these false narratives about asylum seekers and using lines that would not have been out of place in the Third Reich.

Hatred of others, racism and dividing people along false lines was exactly what we fought against in world war two in order to keep Britain free from the scourge of fascism. It is from our history that we learn what we are capable of—acts of good and acts of evil. I believe that history is not predestined. We were not destined to win the battle of Britain or to defeat the Nazis, just as Germany was not destined to fall to fascism in 1933. These were choices made by people, shaped by courage or by fear. Hitler’s approach was to stir up prejudice, divisions and hatred. The same thing happened in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. In Latin America, we saw dictators rise on nationalistic, far-right propaganda. Today, we must be vigilant against those who try to do the same.

We have the strength to overcome this and we must overcome this, unfortunately, again and again, because remembrance never ends. The story of the battle of Britain is the story of our nation—ordinary people of all colours and creeds standing firm in the face of extraordinary danger, showing courage, perseverance and belief in something greater than themselves. It was a moment in which Britain’s true character shone through, undaunted by the odds, unwearied by the challenge and unbroken by the blitz.

There will always be those who will downplay the character of our country, who say that we cannot fight global adversity and who urge us to turn inwards and face away from the rest of the world. They echo the same misjudgment that the Nazis once made. The truth is that Britain’s strength has always been in its resilience, its openness and its refusal to give into fear and hatred. That is what we must carry forward today, and that is the true legacy of the battle of Britain.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)]

I suggest six minutes for Back-Bench speeches.

RAF Photographic Reconnaissance Unit

Lizzi Collinge Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Ms Vaz. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns) for securing this important debate. We are here today to honour the men and women of the RAF photographic reconnaissance unit, whose intelligence gathering and same-day reports influenced critical wartime decisions. It has been a privilege today to hear about some of these men and women, two of whom came from my own constituency of Morecambe and Lunesdale.

Like so many, their heroism was consistent and anonymous. The covert nature of the operations meant that the pilots worked without most forms of protection, and operations were often flown solo in unarmoured and unarmed craft. Consequently, this unit faced some of the deadliest odds in the entire war. Almost half would not survive, and the average life expectancy was barely two years.

The result of these dangerous and often fatal missions were millions of photographs of important strategic targets, giving allies vital and accurate information that would prove instrumental in the planning of some of the most pivotal operations, from D-day to the Dambusters raid. The information was analysed by 635 photographic interpreters, who sifted through nearly 26 million images of enemy operations, providing up-to-date intelligence.

One third of these interpreters were women who worked tirelessly to protect a nation at a time when they were not even allowed to open their own bank accounts. The unit of pilots was made up of people from 22 nations working together to advance the war effort. World war two is considered to be the golden age of British spirit, but the truth is that our greatest achievements have always come from unity across different peoples and places.

As I said, two members of the unit came from my area. John Boys-Stones was born in 1919 in Morecombe, and he joined the RAF to train as a pilot, before he was posted to the photographic reconnaissance squadron based in Malta. On 7 March 1941, he was tasked to photograph the damage inflicted on an enemy shipping convoy that had been attacked earlier that day. On his approach to land, his aircraft was shot down by an enemy fighter. He was killed instantly, and he was only 22.

Another John—John Just—was born in 1916 in Lancaster, and lived in Carnforth. He was a qualified plumber, and after marrying Maybel Jean Brown in 1939, he left for RAF service to train as a navigator. Posted to the 140 photographic reconnaissance squadron, he survived a crash on take-off on Boxing day in 1944. John Just survived the war, and the couple eventually moved to Morecambe, and then to Essex, where they raised a family. They survived to 1994 and 2008 respectively, living long lives and able to enjoy the fruits of the peace they both worked towards.

I would hazard a guess that this is the first time that many of these names have been recognised officially. That is why this monument is so important, and I support the plans outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle. It is a small step to recognise their immense sacrifice and the debt that we owe them. This debate shows us once again that, in a world which so often assumes the worst, real history shows us the opposite. Ordinary citizens again and again choose courage—we could not even list all the people who contributed within the time constraints of this debate.

It is a privilege, as one of the millions of beneficiaries of these heroes, to stand today in a robust parliamentary democracy and speak of their bravery. In remembering them, we remind ourselves of who we can be at our best, when we come together in service of something greater than ourselves.