Brexiteers’ simplistic approach is scary

IT SEEMS a feature of many a Brexiteer’s contribution to this very important national debate [that they have a] tendency for oversimplification based on an aspect of irrational personal prejudice of the EU.

I sense a snide remark by Douglas Davies (WM letters, August 24) when he refers to my letter (August 15) as being “at great length”.

He seems to think that this monumental constitutional issue can be despatched in a simple sentence or two. It is this simplistic, dismissive approach that continues to make the Brexiteers’ case so scary.

So let’s examine further what he overlooks in his simplified response to my earlier letter.

He claims that when casting his vote it was clear to him he was choosing to be governed by our own “elected representatives”. So, by this reckoning, if he has so much faith in our “elected representatives”, why was there a need for a referendum in the first place?

If he trusts our elected representatives with such enthusiasm, why the need for the electorate to interfere in the nation’s “trusted” elected decision-making process? We now know, with nearcertainty, that if this decision had been left to the Westminster political body, Brexit would have been a nonstarter.

It is this sort of shallow thinking that inevitably produces such a contradiction in terms in the Brexiteers’ arguments.

He seems to be implying that his personal understanding, when casting his vote, was a universal one shared by his fellow Brexiteers. He comments that Brussels has no special interest in the UK.

Down the years, Wales, and its valleys in particular, have been so shabbily treated by Westminster that most Valleys people have very little regard for the governance by Westminster. In the interim period they have experienced far better treatment from the EU. So by the same token, it could be facetiously argued that Westminster and its bureaucrats, on the basis of such a dismal record, have no special interest in Wales.

Further, he would be deluding himself if he thinks that most Valleys people shared his perception when they casted their votes.

Again, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to indicate that they voted for Brexit because they harboured fears concerned with the increasing levels of immigrant entries (illegal or otherwise) into the UK. Mischievously, at the time, the likes of Ukip and the chief architects of the Brexit campaign were attributing the cause exclusively to the EU.

Of course, for the sake of success in promoting their campaign, it is of no surprise that these campaigning “leavers” mischievously diverted the voting public’s attention from the real source causing these excessive entries into the UK, viz an incompetent and under-resourced Westminster government department. Without the Valleys vote, Brexit would not have succeeded in Wales.

Finally, he refers to unelected bureaucrats in Brussels. Is he not aware that there are unelected bureaucrats at Whitehall?

The constitutional theory is that our bureaucrats (we call ours mandarins) are controlled by our elected representatives in the same way that the Brussels bureaucrats are controlled by MEPs, who are the elected representatives of the 28 country members.

I suggest that Mr Davies and his fellow Brexiteers think on this when Wales is dealt another deceitful dead hand by Westminster after Brexit.

D Williams Rhoose, Vale of Glamorgan