As the impact of the nerve gas attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter begins to be understood more widely, the prospect of a retaliatory action from the UK Government extends beyond the nonsensical comments by Boris Johnson. Meanwhile the decisions by Donald Trump to reintroduce tariffs for steel and aluminium has the potential to wind the clock back several decades to a time when the cold war was part of our everyday understanding. The lack of meaningful, Brexit arrangement over the Irish geography has raised the risk of reintroducing Irish warfare. All of this begins to remind those of us over the age of 50 why the EU served such an important role in the post WWII world. Let us hope that either we reconsider the Brexit arrangements, or else all of these threats to our society are laid to rest in the very near future.