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With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to share my views on the war in Europe, with special attention for Britain's role in it.

Gentlemen, while we are sitting here at peace and look upon Europe burning, I do not think that many of you see the disaster that I see unfolding. We are seeing a continental European power, Germany, making a bid to assert its dominance over the whole of Europe and unleash political, military, and economical disaster over Britain. Just over a hundred years ago France did the same, but back then we didn't look on, we fought to prevent it.

Many of you do not feel anything for intervening in this war and preferring to watch as Germany defeats France. "What does it matter", the thoughts go. "We have the largest empire and the finest navy in the world!". It is an understandable way of thinking, but the problems a German-dominated Europe will bring us are a series of problems we can not avert simply by putting the Royal Navy in front of them.

We have since the beginning of the century subconsciously slipped further and further away into isolation. The Marquess of Salisbury has said it was a "Splendid Isolation", but I couldn't agree less. It has led to Britain standing in 1917 with no foreign alliances, merely a pact with Russia and the United States. We have also subconsciously abandoned all efforts of maintaining a balance of power in Europe. 

We are looking at a Europe in which reactionary forces aiming to expand their power are winning against what since the Russian revolution have been the forces of justice, liberty and progressive government. This all started when the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, that opresses all nationalities in its empire that are not German or Hungarian to live on, tried to essentially subject Serbia, a democratic kingdom, over a tragic event which they were held accountable for. Russia went to defend their Serbian brothers. Germany went to defend Austria and invaded Russia. Military observers have noted that the invasion was carried out with such precision, it must have been prepared and trained for for years.

And beyond that we see Scandinavia and Turkey, who are joining Germany's conquest of Russian territory. Scandinavia tried to fabricate an incident, based on thin lies of Russian atrocities in Finland. When this plan failed, they decided to go to war anyway. And then there are the Turks who have after their destructive policies in Armenia are returning to do the same once again. Our ambassador in Constantinople reported that there was an active trade in Armenian slaves going on at the markets, and it would not surprise me that the events that were documented by international observers are taking place as I speak!

Now if the cause of liberty and civilisation is not enough to convince you, what would happen in the Central Powers were indeed to dominate Europe? I speculate that Finland shall fall to Scandinavia, the Ottoman Empire takes control of the Caucasus, and large tracts of Russian land shall be severed from St. Petersburg's authority. This ensures the balkans shall fall to the Central Powers, with Italy, the Low Countries and Iberia falling to their economical sphere. 

And here is where the disaster shall begin to unfold. Germany has already not shown any willingness to guarantee the internal stability of Britain, as they did not make any effort to block the arms smuggling to Ieland. With this in mind, we can safely assume the Kaiser has no reason to foster relations with Britain at this point. As such, it seems only logical that they will block Britain off from continental European markets to improve the position of their own industry. This means that in Britain we will lose our markets in Europe, our industry will collapse, many labourers will be out of work, many business-owners will lose all their income, and there exists the chance the entire industrial sector shall collapse in case German goods outcompete their British counterparts.

Gentlemen, I see a monumental injustice taking place. Europe is about to fall under the jackboot of reactionary empires and Britain will be taken with it. It is the duty of the United Kingdom to ensure that liberty and justice shall continue to dominate Europe, and as such I request a declaration of war from Parliament.