Nissan's decision shows what we'll miss out on post-Brexit

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A sign at the Sunderland car assembly plant of Nissan (Getty)

Ben Chu’s report suggests that there may be no coincidence that the news of Nissan’s X-Trail U-turn at Sunderland was leaked from Japan shortly after Japan concluded its free trade deal with the EU. With the prospect of a 10 per cent tariff on UK exports to the EU if there is a no-deal Brexit, how many other cuts in production of Japanese cars in the UK may be planned at Toyota or Honda as well as Nissan?

Ron Mure
Mansfield

After years of hard negotiation, the EU and Japan have negotiated a mutually beneficial trade deal which we will be part of for just over 50 days.

But look on the bright side, post-Brexit it will only take us seven to 10 years to negotiate a deal like this for ourselves!

Mark Edmondson
Lancaster

Learning about the EU made me question my vote in 1975

Paul Kelly writes that while he was at school “nothing was taught” about “the development and workings of the EU” (Letters, yesterday). I have direct, personal experience of how finding out how the EU actually works in practice can have a profound impact on one’s political views.

I was a politics teacher, and during the 1975 referendum was a passionate supporter of the case for remaining a member of the European Economic Community. However over subsequent years I spent more and more time reading up on how decision-making in Brussels really operates, how the rules governing the euro are evaded, how power has become increasingly centralised, how the concept of subsidiarity was effectively discarded, and what the movement towards a super state based on an “ever closer union” will really mean in practice.

Although I continue to favour the idea of a looser, decentralised union, the form the current European project has taken leads me to wonder whether I made a big mistake with my vote back in 1975.

Ivor Morgan
Lincoln

Handing life sentences to teenage criminals needs a rethink

The youngest member of the Manson “family” has been recommended for release by California’s parole board. Leslie Van Houten, now 69, is currently serving a life prison term for her role in the cult’s 1969 killing spree, carried out when she was 19 years of age.

It wasn’t until recently that scientists began to research what happens to the brain in late adolescence and young adulthood. They found that youthful qualities persist until the early-20s with the impulse to chase thrills and immediate gratification peaking around age 19.

As a result of this research, experts in the field argue the ability to plan ahead and consider consequences isn’t generally fully mature until the mid-20s. Surely the time has come for policymakers to reconsider the morality of holding teenagers in prison well into old age.

Rev Dr John Cameron
St Andrews

There’s only one way to make social media companies listen

When it comes to social media, aren’t we missing a key point?

These companies exist for one purpose and that purpose is to make money. They make all the right sounding noises about being responsible and about being conscious about their role in current society, but they never talk about their aim – and need – to make money. If we are to do anything to gain the attention of these companies, hit them where it will hurt – in their wallets.

Steve Mumby
Bournemouth

We should follow Denmark’s lead after Brexit

Why do Theresa May and other major parties not know about and give consideration to the Danish option. The Kingdom of Denmark consists of Denmark, Greenland and the Faroes – the latter two are outside of the EU mainly because of fishing interests, while Denmark itself is an EU member. All remain parts of the Kingdom of Denmark. Does this not address so many of the problems currently arising in the UK?

Northern Ireland and Scotland, both ignored during the current debate, overwhelmingly voted to remain. If they remain members of the EU, the problem of the border of Northern Ireland would not arise. Similarly England and Wales would achieve their referendum result and be out of the EU, while the UK remains as a unit.

Surely, if a small country like Denmark is allowed to or has achieved this, then why can’t we?

Maggie Wynton
Fortrose