Letters: Both sides have forgotten the EU’s higher purpose

The following letters appear in the 22nd March edition of the Independent

A major obstacle to David Cameron’s hopes of staging his promised referendum on European Union membership has been removed after peers backed off from a demand that 16 and 17-year-olds should be allowed to take part (AFP/Getty)

What is so depressing is not just that we’re having this wholly unnecessary referendum – prompted by Cameron’s pandering to the hordes of Little Englanders he perceives to be threatening to overrun his party – but that the complex nature of our place in, and our relationship with, Europe, is being almost universally reduced to a few emotive and, in reality, secondary issues.

I have yet to hear a public figure, even among the luminaries of the dull Remain campaign, point to the origins and underlying principles of the EU.

Boris Johnson recently argued that it was cobbled together in the aftermath of the Second World War at the behest of the French as a means of containing the power of a potentially resurgent Germany. As one assumes he knows full well, this is absolute nonsense.

After centuries of European wars, the enlightened leaders of France, Germany and the other four founder members, decided to embark on a project the like of which the world had never previously seen, as a means of preventing further European wars, and to pave the way towards a free-trade block.

Dare it be said also, in the current climate of neurotic obsessing about the woolly notion of sovereignty, that those founders were also anticipating the evolution of their new alliance into a form of federation, the precise form and extent of which would take shape as the project unfolded.

With all the carping about red tape, overpaid bureaucrats and free movement of labour, perhaps the carpers might pause to ask: “What has Europe ever done for us?” The answer is to introduce and to extend to our shores much of the social policy and positive regulation which, over the past 45 years, have made this country, and our lives, infinitely fairer and safer.

But the riposte comes: “We would have done it far better if left to our own devices.” I don’t think so. The self-interest of our complacently protectionist establishment would have certainly knocked any such notions swiftly on the head.

Do we not elect our politicians to deal with the complex issue of government? Asking the electorate to decide on the merits of EU membership is no less demanding than, say, a referendum to formulate the Budget.

Despite its undeniable and inevitable shortcomings, the European project has provided a model with which, if the world would only emulate it, we might begin to progress from the violent tribalism of our species to a better place.

Vote to stay. Then let’s put this futile exercise behind us and get on with sorting out things that really matter – climate change being a tad more important.

Martin Allen

Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex

Both sides of the referendum debate, among other things, predict job losses. If we vote to come out of the EU, one person sure to lose his job will be Nigel Farage, since we will no longer need MEPs.

Sandra Grainger

Normandy, Surrey

Hell will have no fury like 27 “loyal European friends” scorned.

Andy Turney

Winfrith Newburgh, Dorset

The quiet man’s gambit

George Osborne’s enemies should reflect on the likely timing of a Tory Party leadership contest before they comfort themselves that he now has no chance of winning it. The fixed-term parliament legislation means that we can be almost certain that there are just over 1,500 days to go before the next general election. It’s therefore unlikely that David Cameron will step down until at least another thousand days from now. By then the events of this past weekend are likely to be all but forgotten.

But in just over 90 days we’re having a much more important vote in the EU referendum. It’s hard not to believe that this wasn’t the prime reason for the timing of Iain Duncan Smith’s sudden resignation after nearly six years in the job.

Perhaps the Quiet Man isn’t quite as honourable, or his motives quite as pure, as his supporters would have us believe. Along with Boris Johnson, he seems to be staking his remaining political ambitions on an all-or-nothing punt on the outcome of the referendum. They presumably hope that a victory for the “outers” would trigger the Prime Minister’s more rapid resignation.

Brian Hughes

Cheltenham

Government policy seen to be dictated by George Osborne rather than the Prime Minister is bound to cause trouble. There isn’t a department that doesn’t have its policy wholly or partly shaped by the Chancellor. He has too much power. It’s the same in the corporate world if you let accountants run companies. They may balance the books, but they discount the spirit, imagination and vision required for success.

David Gibbs

London SW4

People may look at Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation and call it hypocritical in the face of all the changes that he implemented to the benefit system. But when one compares his role with that played by Jeremy Hunt, a picture emerges of a party trying to direct flack for unpopular decisions on to ministers who have already had their political ambitions thwarted and who, one suspects, have been promised seats in the Lords.

That IDS finally found the changes too much and walked away shows that he at least has some shred of integrity and humanity, which has clearly set him apart from the Cabinet. Rather than focusing on his resignation in the light of the Brexit debate, close attention ought to be paid to those who continue to stand by silently while the poor, sick and disabled are left to suffer, while our NHS is dismantled and our emergency services are stripped to the bone. None of these are policies being pushed through by mean ministerial individuals; they are the hidden manifesto and the deliberate aspirations of the Conservative Party as a whole.

Julian Self

Wolverton, Milton Keynes

I was astounded when I saw the quote attributed to Amber Rudd “...when the rest of us are absolutely committed to a one-nation government”. I thought that pretence had been abandoned long ago. If one-nation government is indeed the Conservatives’ aspiration, I suggest that they need to concentrate on being one party first.

Gordon Watt

Reading

The correspondents (letters, 21 March) who accused Iain Duncan Smith of hypocrisy in his denouncing of his own Government for its lack of concern about social justice are entirely right.

Those Tory MPs who have jumped on this bandwagon and who want to leave the EU are the same people who want to rid the country of the EU rules that help to protect the less well off: the working time directive, minimum holiday entitlements, etc. Once out, they will be free to erode workers’ rights with impunity, worsening the lot of those they are currently claiming to champion.

This appalling situation, bitterly destructive even by Conservative Party standards, and three months before the referendum, underlines the folly of this vote in the first place. The question is: will it cause Jeremy Corbyn to stop contemplating his navel and start campaigning for us to remain in the EU? Sadly, I doubt it.

Ian Richards

Birmingham

Show some courage on higher income tax

The fairest way to raise public revenue, it is widely agreed, is via income tax. Neither the present Government nor quite a few before it have had the courage to raise the basic rate when more cash has been needed.

Instead they have gone all round the houses trying to find less politically risky (but often more regressive) ways of funding the Exchequer. Both Mr Cameron and indeed Mr Corbyn need to turn the present situation to advantage by indicating that – in future – they will grasp this necessary nettle.

Rev Andrew McLuskey

Stanwell, Surrey

Corbyn has dealt with anti-Semitism

I disagree with your editorial (21 March) about “anti-Semitism” in Labour. Corbyn has suspended and expelled those who have voiced anti-Semite views, “Anti-Zionism” and “anti-Israeli government”, both of which I am, are not anti-Semitism. I have nothing against Jews and never will.

You mention a “two-state solution”, but that is just a gimmick for the right-wing Israeli government and media. There will never be a two-state solution under Netanyahu. The problem with Lord Levy, now threatening to quit Labour and a close pal of man of peace Tony Blair, is that he never condemned Israel’s attacks on Palestinians.

Steven Boyle

Middlesbrough

Do students actually have breakfast?

With reference to the student’s breakfast order (letters, 14-21 March), surely any self–respecting student would still be abed when restaurants and cafés had removed breakfast items from the menu.

Brad Ingram

Saffron Walden