Sir, – The designated date for the exit of the UK from the European Union is Friday, March 29th. The first business day for the new “independent” UK will be the following Monday, April 1st. Conspiracy or coincidence? – Yours, etc,
GARY O’HARE,
Glenageary,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – With the increasingly toxic and febrile atmosphere in Westminster, nothing would delight Brexiteers and their newspapers more than Sinn Féin turning up to support a people’s vote. Sinn Féin would be demonised and any people’s vote would surely be lost. A good example of “Be careful what you wish for”. – Yours, etc,
JOHN MORAN,
Dublin 2.
Sir, – So the Marx Brothers are the latest cultural appropriation by Fintan O'Toole in his relentless anti-Brexit crusade (Opinion & Analysis, December 11th). They join, just in 2018 alone, the Sex Pistols, Dad's Army, Mad Max, as well as John Bull and Caligula. Your columnist's Brit-bashing is now so repetitive that it has become as well-worn as a very old suit made in an episode of that classic TV sitcom Never Mind The Quality: Feel The Width. Perhaps he might work that into his next column. – Yours, etc,
KEN ANDREW,
Cobh,
Co Cork.
Sir, – If Theresa May is deposed and either Boris Johnston or Jacob Rees-Mogg is elected in her place, I still have the tablets I was issued with in case of a nuclear meltdown. – Yours, etc,
DAVID MURNANE,
Dunshaughlin,
Co Meath.
Sir, – Theresa May will lose her job. There will be a general election. The future Labour/SNP government will withdraw from the withdrawal project, courtesy of the European Court of Justice decision. A period of political trench warfare fuelled by public disquiet stoked by polarised media propaganda will conclude with another referendum. The Remainers will win. What’s the betting? – Yours, etc,
DES O HALLORAN,
Tralee,
Co Kerry.
Sir, – Perhaps Ireland should join an independent Scotland to form Utopias (United Territory of the Peoples of Ireland and Scotland). The new territory would be democratically in the EU but it would necessitate a hard border with England following Brexit.
Fortuitously, Hadrian’s Wall has been standing idly by for over a millennium and it could be brought back into service. – Yours, etc,
JOE DUNNE,
Shanakiel,
Cork.
Sir, – I would like to thank you for printing so many interesting letters in relation to Brexit. However, I notice that there is one aspect, important to us, that has not been covered. That is the fact that our somewhat invisible “border”, a vague line between ancient counties, will become the official frontier between the EU and a non-EU state. Like it or not, it will become a western version of the frontier between Poland and Russia.
There is some talk about a “soft” border; but what is that? If nothing is done to avoid it, many EU citizens will flock into the Republic of Ireland as of right and will simply walk over the Border into the United Kingdom. Obviously that cannot be allowed to happen. Certainly the British could not allow it to happen.
Talk of a “soft” border is just that – talk. So I feel that sooner rather than later we will have a hard border. Why haven’t we heard a bit more about this obvious fact? – Yours, etc,
WILLIAM MURPHY,
Malahide, Co Dublin.
Sir, – Simon O’Neill (December 12th) contends that it would be bad to have a referendum with the option of reversing Brexit because it would undermine “democracy and people’s faith in the political class” to have another vote on a “once in a generation vote” without implementing the result of the first vote.
However, this neglects the reality that, whenever the opportunity presented itself for anyone who actually advocated for Brexit to take any serious role in implementing the policy, it was not taken up. Instead, the Brexiteers have contented themselves to sitting in the backbenches and harassing others for not turning their fantasy Brexit into reality.
Why should the UK be condemned to implementing a policy that has, to date, shown absolutely no evidence of being anything but harmful to the interests of its citizens, and when those who screamed the loudest for it do not believe in it enough to actually try and make it work? – Yours, etc,
TOMÁS M CREAMER,
Ballinamore,
Co Leitrim.
Sir, – The problem with British politics at the moment is that it is making the morning paper obsolete before breakfast. – Yours, etc,
DAVID CLARKE,
Edinburgh.