Young relish their freedom in Europe
IT is frightfully good news that a new air link can whisk us from our local airport to the beer kellers of Munich and I wish Flybmi every success with the new route.
But while the new air service is good news, Brexit could make it impossible for British people to get more than a superficial understanding of life in Bavaria.
I refer of course to cloistered Theresa May’s determination – supported by the ageing Jeremy Corbyn – to casually and callously dismiss and discard the freedom of movement which is cherished by a majority of educated young people as being culturally and socially enriching.
I am a staunch advocate of the UK remaining in the EU. If Brexit goes ahead, then in years to come when we are debating with an independent Scotland how to retain the submarine base on the Clyde, people might see that remaining in the EU could have avoided serious problems. However I’d settle for the Norway Plus option as it retains the freedom of movement. I turn 60 next year and will have taught languages for nearly 30 years.
Since 1992, our youngsters have then been able to use those languages as they take advantage of life-enhancing freedom of movement. At present, many young people are taking steps to acquire passports of EU countries that they have some connection with.
Students will be divided into two groups – those ‘‘British’’ students who can still exercise their right to freedom of movement as they hold a second EU passport and those who don’t and who are therefore denied their rights as European citizens.
So let’s have that second referendum and allow young people aged 16 and 17 currently preparing their futures at university, or in apprenticeships, to express what we know anecdotally to be their desire to embrace for our country a truly European future retaining, but if necessary reforming, freedom of movement.
REMAIN campaigners cannot concede they were defeated on a clear democratic vote in the 2016 referendum.
Canon Michael Storey (The Yorkshire Post, December 20), patently a man in the Justin Welby mould, a fully paidup member of the orthodox, pseudo-liberal establishment, is another one who cannot believe that Remainer activists’ fixated views on our EU membership could possibly be questioned, let alone be repudiated.
He declares that the referendum was a foolish one. I’d like to speculate that if the referendum had gone the other way he would have recognised it as an eminently sensible one.
With typical Remain arrogance mingled with a dollop of ignorance, he goes on to assert that the decision to leave the EU should have required at least 50 per cent of the eligible vote. Does he realise that this would have been equivalent to a terminallyloaded dice in favour of the bureaucrats in Brussels?