Leaving the EU

Letter: Leaving the EU

2 July 2016

Sir,

Whilst many voters had various reasons to leave unfortunately the EU referendum has shown that England and, to a lesser extent Wales have now proved which nations are narrow nationalists, unlike Scotland which is internationalist.

They have proved that many people living there distrust or even hate foreigners and are extremely right wing. Unfortunately according to many outpourings since the result, this is not confined to what is called the 'nasty right wing' of the Tory party,backed up by their UKIP allies. Many working class Labour supporters all over England also voted to leave the EU, because of "immigrants," now leaving both the Labour and Tory parties in a shambles.

Although democratically within the rules, less than 4% of a majority is considered a mandate to tear the UK out of the EU. So where does this leave Scottish democracy with a majority of 24% to remain part of the EU?

Furthermore, according to the demographic breakdown of the UK results, the younger generation(s) voted overwhelmingly to remain. Only in the over 65s was there a majority decision to leave. Those who, bluntly, have less time to reflect on this decision have forced their decision on future generations. In addition,unlike the Scottish referendum, the 16-18 year old group were deprived of a vote,completely. These are the ones who will have to live longest with the consequences of this decision ( I declare an interest as an over-65).

David Cameron's disastrous gamble has led to his departure. Jeremy Corbyn who is losing cabinet members by the day, and who was seen as being lukewarm and weak during the campaign. Indeed his 'support' for the Remain campaign is suspect ,to say the least. His party colleagues are acting like lemmings and jumping of the cliff in droves.The future will now be dictated by such as Boris Johnson and Farage and Coburn, and that does not indicate a secure future.

The main plank of the Leave campaign was anti-foreigner,anti-immigrant, and terrorism, and somehow all were run together in one message. After 70 years of peace in Europe,with the exception of the 'internal' Balkan war, this message is extremely dangerous itself. Even ignoring the benefits that immigrants have brought to many aspects of UK life, most terrorist attacks in this country have been by UK citizens. Cutting ourselves off from the rest of Europe will not solve this problem. Incidentally,why are people coming to the UK called migrants or immigrants,whilst UK people living abroad in other countries called 'ex-pats'?

Finally, the financial consequences are still to be felt. The simplistic argument that a bottom line of so many millions will come back to the UK "to be used solely for the NHS" has already been watered down and now it would be, according to Iain Duncan Smith, "mainly" used for the NHS and other things as decided by the government." Within two days the message had changed, and Farage would not even go that far. Come 2020 there will be no more grants or subsidies for industries reliant on the money to maintain their survival. Already these vague figures, which have no basis in fact, due to many other unknown financial consequences which none of us can anticipate at this stage, are being changed. If indeed there will be a 'surplus balance' at all.

We can safely say the incompetents no longer run the UK, it is the lunatics.

Rae Mackenzie

Goathill Rd,

Stornoway