Lessons must be learned, indeed

Rosie Duffield’s column last week was entitled ‘Lessons must be learned’. In light of this, her ongoing determination to rejoin the EU seems all the more ironic. As a Remain voter, I accepted the referendum result. I steeled myself for the profound economic shock. I awaited the immediate plunge into recession, the sharp rise in unemployment. None of this doom-laden scenario transpired.

Since then I have been appalled to witness not only the EU’S intransigence during the Brexit deal talks, but more recently to see how the EU countries, apparently over-burdened by bureaucracy, have singularly failed to work together to fight the Covid virus, leaving most of its member countries horribly unprepared. Whereas freed from Brussels, Britain has shown an independent efficiency in not only being instrumental in devising a vaccine through backing private enterprise but in rolling the vaccines out in record numbers and in record times. Keir Starmer, should he be elected in four years’ time, accepts he will inherit the Brexit deal and is intent on making it work.

Yet Rosie Duffield attests in your paper last week that she will direct her energies to rejoining what I now think of as a shambolic charade of an unworkable union. Lessons must be learned, indeed.

Diana Turner

St Peter’s Lane, Canterbury Perhaps before bewailing our departure from the EU, our MP, Rosie Duffield, might like to consider that were we still in we would be expected to contribute billions of euros to the EU Covid Recovery Fund. And, of course, we would have barely started our Covid-19 vaccination programme, owing to the EU’S delay in getting the programme signed off, the fact that it has not ordered enough doses and its desire to move at the speed of the slowest, with misery and delay equally spread among its members. I’m glad we’re out; we might not be perfect, but we’re doing better than the EU is.

Bob Britnell

Orchard Close, Canterbury

In her support for the UK to rejoin the European Union, Rosie Duffield shows her contempt for both the result of the 2016 referendum, and the stunning

defeat of Labour in the last general election, where the Conservatives were the only party to unequivocally commit to honouring the referendum result, whilst Labour proposed a second referendum without defining what this entailed, or why it was needed, and the Liberals committed to ignoring the referendum result entirely. The Conservative win in that 2019 general election shows that the population overwhelmingly supported our leaving the

EU, and despite the constant criticism of the government by Rosie’s leader in parliament ever since (hindsight is a wonderful thing) we are doing very well at present.

I, for one, having recently received my first Covid vaccination, am aware that, had we remained in the EU, or joined their 27-country vaccination scheme (as Labour and the Liberals wanted) I would still be waiting, and at my age, under 80, probably for many more months. The Conservative government have not got everything right in fighting Covid-19, or in our trade agreement with the EU, but I would suggest that under either Labour (or the Liberals) our situation would have been far worse. Rosie Duffield should wait a few years, and see how we progress as an independent nation, before airing her views on this subject.

David Spencer,

Dering Close, Bridge

Rosie Duffield’s views on rejoining the EU have been criticised