Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Despite the arguments, the UK has actually handled Brexit with restraint

Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

Friday 01 February 2019 14:23 GMT
Comments
‘What I have seen is a mature democracy dealing in a fairly civilised way with an issue that has passionately divided the country’
‘What I have seen is a mature democracy dealing in a fairly civilised way with an issue that has passionately divided the country’

I think Mary Dejevsky (“Brexit’s wind of change will hit the EU as well as the UK”) is spot on to write that Brexit has been treated by the EU as an existential question. I would add that this has been its mistake. In Britain, committed Leavers appear to see Brexit more about interrelated economic and social issues – greater freedom to trade or support industry combining with immigration control to reduce labour supply and raise wages. Remainers who ideologically support the European “project” lack this “particularity” and seem unable to offer anything other than the status quo.

However, the one thing that could become very existential indeed is the question of the Irish backstop, which to many currently seems simply a technicality. But “what is the UK?” may grow into an important question and the EU, the Irish government and supporters of a second referendum should be cautious as many Remainers may prefer a no deal, regardless of the consequences, to seeing any diminution in the integrity of our nation state.

And the EU is also wrong to be, as Dejevsky reports, “ridiculing the disarray they observe” here. I have followed Brexit’s progress and watched the parliamentary debates and what I have seen is a mature democracy dealing in a fairly civilised way with an issue that has passionately divided the country. Outside parliament there is angst, argument and isolated acts of violence but have there been organised riots, fire bombings and the vandalising of national icons? Have the police used tear gas or water cannon or rubber bullets? Have government departments ceased to function and employees go without wages? Perhaps both the EU (and USA) should rather admire the constitutional manner and social restraint with which this country is wrestling with its most serious and divisive political question since 1973.

Alan Gwyer
Basingstoke

Where to next after the driverless car?

There have been so many new inventions and developments that it is easy to wonder where they are heading.

Originally people walked everywhere – a bit like hard work. Then they rode horses – more convenient but a bit smelly. The next item was the car in its many forms – convenient and not really that smelly.

Cars worked well for over a century, slowly improving, getting more efficient, less energy consuming and “nicer”. Then someone must have drunk too much and went silly – let’s have a car without a driver.

There are now cars that do not need drivers and they work well and run over fewer people than cars with drivers. People can work on the way to work and on the way home from work. The passengers are reasonably safe.

The next stage will be the passengerless, driverless car so that these workers will be ever safer. The number of driver and passenger deaths and injuries is sure to drop.

The last stage in the evolution of transport system will be the carless car or as it was originally called “walking”. The air will be fresher, people will be fitter and happier. The horses may start to panic though.

Dennis Fitzgerald
Melbourne, Australia

Brexit shouldn’t distract us from the real issues

Mark Steel is right that Brexit should not distract us from the ongoing plight of refugees and asylum seekers. In the midst of winter, let us spare a thought for those who are less fortunate than us: for the homeless, the impoverished, the destitute, the hapless, for refugee women and unaccompanied minors struggling with excruciating pain, loss, separation, armed conflicts, forced displacement, gruelling poverty, withering injustices, civil wars, rape, sexual harassment, negative stereotypes, religious persecution, political instability, social mayhem and communicable and non-communicable diseases in extreme winter conditions.

I have just returned from Jordan. I saw firsthand the heartbreaking and harrowing situation of refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. The global apathy is unimaginable. Developing countries like Jordan and Lebanon have shouldered the brunt of refugees with their dwindling resources. As Queen Rania of Jordan elegantly put it: “The global community needs to prioritise this global refugee crisis. Otherwise, we’ll be limping from one crisis to the next, leaving a trail of heartbreak and broken lives behind – and I think that’s not to anybody’s benefit.”

Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob
London, NW2

Violence in prisons is not the norm

I really must take issue with the opening sentence of your editorial. Prisons are not violent “of necessity”, nor are they “always” violent. I was a prison governor for 27 years before retiring eight and a half years ago, by which time I had governed three prisons. There was violence from time to time, some of it serious, and some of it self-inflicted, but I can assure you that these incidents occupied only a very small fraction of my time in the service and violence was generally confined to a very small proportion of the prison population.

Most prisoners simply wanted to do their time as quietly as possible and most of them succeeded in this.

Admittedly, things seem to have deteriorated since I retired because of budget and staff cuts, changes in the drug culture and the availability of technology such as drones, but it is completely wrong to suggest that prisons, by their very nature, have always been consumed by violence.

Antony Robson
Westbury

Recess holidays

Theresa May has cancelled the half-term break for MPs. Please reassure me that the dedicated, hardworking MPs will be recompensed for the cancelled skiing trips or swift visits to Barbados. The deserving poor will always be with us! One would hate to think this would further add to their woes.

Mike Flisher
Blyth

The UK underestimated the power of Ireland

I suspect that behind our current problems with the Irish backstop lies an unrevealed miscalculation on the Brexiteers’ part. They believed that the EU would not let a small, powerless country like Ireland stand in the way of a deal with the UK. The EU would therefore abandon its responsibilities to Ireland, which would then, left without the shield that the EU provides, fall back into a state of dependence on its bigger neighbour Britain, ready to be bullied again as it was bullied by England for 700 years.

But neither the EU nor the Irish faltered in their resolve. Maybe we are facing the just consequences of the many centuries of misery that we imposed on Ireland.

Francis Beswick
Stretford

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in