Fintan O’Toole’s Comment piece “Only when it is in peril is the idea of Europe so inspiring” was, well, simply inspiring. Against the backcloth of the wider Tory party scrapping it out over Brexit, his article offered welcome historical and nuanced perspective on why remaining in the EU matters – but is also such a difficult issue.
He is right that fear of the abyss has been a potent factor in encouraging the diverse entity we call Europe to work together at times of threat or in the aftermath of catastrophe. Once, the Ottoman Turks drove warring nations into some kind of “holy” alliance; much later, it was the mud of Flanders and the gas chambers of Auschwitz that fuelled the struggle for a better alternative.
The trouble is that fear alone may not be enough to secure the European project. Hope matters, too; and for too many ordinary people, living in marginalised communities, where Ukip and racism have taken hold, there is an abundance of hopelessness. This is a product of alienation, economic and social precariousness, stigmatisation and a hollowed-out representative democracy. In such contexts, the old human tendency to blame the other – the Jew, the asylum seeker, or the Muslim – is easily encouraged. Unless we generate new resources of hope, we will continue to struggle to convince many fellow citizens that the EU is worth persevering with.
Professor Linden West
Faculty of Education
Canterbury Christ Church University
Kent
Andrew Rawnsley (“This can’t be left to the Tory party – it’s everyone’s country at stake”, Comment) concludes that the referendum will be a “generational choice”, contrasting it with general elections that give prime ministers a “short-term lease on power, with the right to change our minds after five years”. Precisely – a vote to remain will remove the right to change our minds for good.
Whether one favours a Gradgrindian Thatcherism that removes all worker rights, or a Corbynista fantasy of wholesale nationalisation, we will find these are impossible, given the reach of the Brussels acquis. Some may find this comforting; but I prefer a democracy in which we have the power to do even daft things, and to change our minds. A “remain” vote on 23 June will be an example of another type of democracy: “one person, one vote, once”.
John Old
Nuneaton
Warwickshire
There would be a certain logic to Michael Gove’s position that “the European Union prevents us being able to change huge swaths of law etc” (News), and that of the other outers if he, and they, were also campaigning strongly against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement. Or is a loss of sovereignty to global corporations acceptable, but not to elected heads of state?
One wonders if the real agenda is not a national but a socioeconomic one.
And for those who claim to be concerned that the EU is undemocratic, why do they never suggest more power to the European parliament, which is elected? And why does no one point out that it is not faceless bureaucrats in Brussels that take the crucial decisions but the council of ministers, who show no sign of democratising their power?
Gerard Bell
London SE17
Tracy McVeigh’s report from Hastings (“Outside the bubble, what England thinks”, News), contains comments by a Sussex businessman that illustrate the British confusion about our identity and relationship with Europe. Paul Johnson says he is “Anglo-Saxon to the core” and goes on to blame the Normans for taking us over. “Why don’t we learn from history?” he says. Indeed. Mr Johnson seems not to know where the Angles and Saxons came from.
Geoffrey Bailey
Taunton
Somerset