Sir, – There was something very admirable in the stand taken by those Conservative MPs who refused to be bullied by their now hijacked party and voted against their government, knowing the consequences for their careers. Putting the country before your personal interests is a rarity verging on eccentricity. It should be applauded.
It is arguable that they have not left their party but that it has left them. Either way, they leave behind a diminishing band, including the disingenuous, who know that what the UK prime minister is saying is 24 carat nonsense but pretend otherwise; the clueless, who can’t tell the difference between fact and fiction; and the loony fringe, who don’t care. – Yours, etc,
KEVIN O’SULLIVAN,
Dublin 7.
Sir, – Is Jo Johnson the first politician to resign in order to spend less time with his family? – Yours, etc,
RORY J WHELAN,
Drogheda,
Co Meath.
Sir, – Bill Bailey (Letters, September 4th) is perfectly correct, the UK does not require EU permission to leave the EU (Letters, September 4th). However, there are contractual details to be dealt with as in any break-up of partnership. If, having decided to leave, the UK wants an alternative relationship, including trade, these have to be negotiated and agreed upon.
So the UK is not asking permission to leave, but it is looking for some sort of alternative agreement. Theresa May negotiated one such, but this hasn’t found favour with parliament in Westminster.
Seamus McKenna in his letter of the same date says that Britain was never a good European. The EU thrives on compromise agreements. The UK decision to stay outside Schengen and the euro were just two such agreed compromises. Nothing wrong with that, and it doesn’t make them bad Europeans. We in Ireland have sought our own derogations from time to time, and we don’t always comply with directives, but we still consider ourselves good Europeans.
The Irish backstop merely strives to avoid a hard border on the island to protect the integrated all-island economy and to avoid provoking those dissident republicans who would see any border as a “legitimate target”. Is it so bad to want that? Indeed it was Mrs May who proposed an all-UK backstop because her supporters, the DUP, wouldn’t countenance a Northern Ireland-only arrangement.
Will compromise and common sense ultimately prevail? Time will tell. – Yours, etc,
VINCENT MURPHY,
Cork.
Sir, – Boris Johnson has claimed that the Bill put forward by Labour to remove “no deal” as an option “cut the legs” from under his negotiating position.
He sees the economic threat of “no deal” as his strongest card and boldly plays it to this effect. Apparently about a third of the Westminster parliament and British electorate agrees. What needs to be explained to Brexiters is that threatening your trading partners with significant economic damage is not negotiation,it is coercion, and has been identified as such by the EU. That he believes such tactics will be entertained, and has received such support in doing so, is scandalous and sickening.
Mr Johnson needs to understand that one cannot cut the legs from under a thing that simply has no legs. – Yours, etc,
DANNY RAFFERTY,
Raheny,
Dublin 5.
Sir, – Sinn Féin can play a positive and constructive role in the next UK parliament, which would serve the best interests of Ireland, North and South.
The party could contest the forthcoming general election and take its seats in Westminster or it could decide not to contest the election and instead urge its supporters to vote for other pro-Europe parties in Northern Ireland.
Either option would be seen as a progressive step. It would ensure that the preference of the majority of people in Northern Ireland would be heard and it could of course lessen the disproportionate prominence of the DUP. – Yours, etc,
DONAL McAULIFFE,
Harold’s Cross
Dublin 6W.
Sir, – The recent political shenanigans in UK offer no evident outcome in terms of a long-term solution to the Brexit issue but it does seem that a general election will have to happen, either shortly or in the medium term and hopefully before any crash-out can occur. Given the polarisation of prevalent UK political opinion, any such election must inevitably become a proxy referendum, and surely this time neither the EU at European Commission level or, for that matter, our own national establishment, will remain mute.
The EU’s historic silence, when over the past decades outrageous assertions about EU governance issues were headlined in UK media, played no small part in developing an anti-EU mindset that proved so fatally malleable in the hands of the Leave campaign, in 2016. This time there must be no repeat of this mistake, and the EU must use this opportunity to nail some of the more pernicious lies as well, as making clear the negative effect on so-called “friends and neighbours” of the consequences to be inflicted on Ireland.
Due to the nature of the last referendum campaign, many Irish-born UK voters backed Leave without any appreciation of the far-reaching effect on their families at home. This time should we not be calling on them as a discrete demographic to do the right thing and make sure their vote does not end up fuelling a no-deal Brexit?
This call would have to come from every level of our national establishment, and in these difficult times we should be constrained no longer by concerns about interfering in the internal politics of the UK. – Yours, etc,
NIALL PRITCHARD,
Greystones.
Co Wicklow.