Letter of the week: What the road back from Brexit looks like

A campaign to make things simpler by, for example, cutting customs paperwork or the rigmarole and delays of waiting at borders while everyone with an EU passport breezes through, highlights tangible benefits that no amount of saying “single market/customs union” could ever demonstrate. Or, as one could put on a bus: “Tired of queues? Join the EU”. 
Phil Alderton
Bicester, Oxfordshire

The thing to emphasise is that we cannot go back. We can’t “rejoin”. The world of 2016 is gone. Time to stop litigating the past; stop berating those who brought us Brexit; above all, don’t make Europe a partisan matter.

In a world of Donald Trump, energy crisis, security crisis and, before long, food crisis, the direction of travel for Britain is clear: we must be part of the European community or suffer. Britain’s relative wealth has declined sharply in the last few years – the average Brit now has a poorer standard of living than most Europeans. There is only one way to remedy this.

But, while it is inevitable that in the near future Britain will be part of the New Europe, it is not clear how we get there, and what we might lose along the way. This has to be a whole-of-society effort.
RSP Zatsen

What a refreshingly upbeat read. One can only applaud the optimism.

From the outside, at least, the tea-leaves suggest something rather more “continental” – a traffic-light coalition of sorts. Not necessarily a bad thing, provided it comes with a clear-eyed commitment to joining the New Europe properly: the customs union, single market, the euro, the whole shooting match. Half measures have had their day.

So, allons-y, Britain. The stage is set. Time, perhaps, not just to rediscover your place in Europe, but to remind the world just how great you can be.
Jean-Marc Le Feuvre

I think either joining or rejoining will take a long time – at the very least, another 20-30 years. I don’t doubt that many EU countries would welcome the UK back into the EU. But the EU is very strict on rules, so any negotiation – as we have seen – is long, arduous and rules-based. 

I’m afraid that only after a generation will the poison of Brexit be bled from the country’s veins and future generations can make a rational, more informed and contemporary decision without any “baggage”.
Richard Riddle

Re: “Everyone has gone mad” by James Ball, TNW #476

Thank God for James O’Brien. Someone has to cut through the manipulation and transparent nonsense while holding the right wing media mafia to account, and he does that both brilliantly and relentlessly. It couldn’t have come at a more vital moment in our history.

The only downside of listening to his show is the tiresomely predictable Nick Ferrari promotional clips posted in the adverts.
Patrick Moffat

Suggested Reading

James O’Brien says the press have gone mad – and it’s worse than you think

James Ball

Re: “Don’t fall for an extremist” by Patience Wheatcroft, TNW #476

For Patience Wheatcroft to label Nigel Farage and Zack Polanski as equal is insulting. While it is true that some of Polanski’s policies do not hold up under scrutiny, at least he is focusing his message on hope, while Farage seems only capable of focusing on hate and fear-mongering. A government led by Farage would be far more terrifying, and that is an important distinction that was lost in this article.
Ffion Gomersall

I live in Halesworth, Suffolk, a rural area that has a Green MP (Adrian Ramsey) who is by a country mile the best MP this area has had in the modern era. East Suffolk council is run by the Green Party; it is a constructively run council. We have the most efficient bin collection and recycling system I have known.

We also have a Green Party county councillor and two Green Party East Suffolk councillors who work in the best interests of the community. None of these people are extremists.
Aubrey Jones
Halesworth, Suffolk

The Green Party under Zack Polanski is the only credible left-of-centre party remaining in Westminster politics. Voting Green is hardly a political experiment when the economic illiteracy of four decades of experimentation by Tory and Labour governments make them the ones to be shunned – as they will be in the May elections!
Andy Lippok
Edinburgh, Scotland 

Re: “Who should go to university?” by Shuab Gamote, TNW #476

The English market-based system of universities is failing young people in spectacular fashion. The time has come to look for solutions not in the US, but in Europe, where the higher education system works perfectly well. 

In France and Germany, students pay virtually no fees (as in Scotland) and normally attend their local university. Students wishing to move out of their area can do so, but must finance themselves, grants being available only for those in the greatest financial need.

Degree courses are not constrained by the three- to four-year rule: achievement of a degree takes as long as it takes to accumulate the required number of credits (like the Open University). If need be, students spread their courses over a longer time and take part-time jobs. 

The British university system is a watered-down version of the “boarding-school university” found in Oxbridge. A high premium is set on the quality of student life, but this should apply to apprentices, too. Are voices being raised for them? Thank you, Shuab Gamote.
Anthony Lodge (Prof)

Re: Everyday Philosophy on Nick Timothy, TNW #476

I am a Catholic. Does Nick Timothy think that processions around my church on Palm Sunday are an act of domination? Is a Salvation Army Band an act of domination? These words are not worthy of a shadow justice secretary in a multi-faith society. If Timothy was defending British values, as claimed by Kemi Badenoch, these are not the values of this Brit, or many other British people.
Judith A Daniels

BELOW THE LINE

Re: Alastair Campbell’s Diary, TNW #476

Chris Boffey was a good chap and a good colleague with a good name on what we still like to call Fleet Street. And on the money with his first rule of journalism: “Never work for the Daily Mail”. Now that really is having the last laugh.
John Price

Re: Letters, TNW #476

To answer Helen Trembeth’s question on MPs (“can they really do what they want?”), the simple answer is yes; but only a foolish MP would do that. Having worked for a very busy MP, I can assure her that most work extremely long hours.

They assist constituents with problems, run visits and then there is parliamentary work – most backbench MPs will work in all-party parliamentary groups. The MP I worked for was on two of these and also on the public accounts committee. They organised and led a bill through its stages and held surgeries twice a week. A few MPs who treat their jobs as only important to them give a bad name to the rest.
Ann McDowe

Re: GB News, TNW #475

Lee Anderson is referred to in your report as a “former Labour MP”. He was a former Tory MP, but only ever a former Labour councillor.
Dr Roderick Lawford