Peace in Europe

I’M SICK of the fascist-sounding ‘will of the people’ phrase; it’s another brainless mantra, like ‘Brexit means Brexit’, but more dangerous in that it implies that anyone who disagrees with it is ‘unpatriotic’ or a ‘traitor’.

the ‘majority mandate’ is no such thing. even leaving aside the excluded 16 and 17-year-olds (whose future the Brexiteers treat with indifference) and the thousands of expats who were excluded from the referendum vote despite its long-lasting, potentially devastating effect on their lives, or the hundreds of thousands of eu citizens who live, work and pay their taxes here, but are now ‘the other’ with little or no rights, it’s worth remembering only 37 per cent of the electorate voted to Leave.

that’s 17 million of at least 65 million uK residents. that isn’t a majority. It isn’t the ‘will of the people’, and calling it such is peddling a lie.

It’s also breathtaking hypocrisy to call on Winston Churchill in support of Brexit. For all his faults, Churchill knew his history.

He knew from personal experience, in lives and material losses, the consequences of two major european civil wars. He knew that european peace can come about only by unity, not petty nationalism, xenophobia or nasty name-calling.

thanks to the european experiment, flawed as it is ( like all political institutions), we’ve had the longest period of peace in 1,000 years of european history.

Simmering conflicts in the Basque lands, the Sud tyrol and Ireland have been negated by european unity, open borders and democracy.

don’t lecture me on being ‘patriotic’. I’m proud to be english, British (my mother’s side are Welsh and Scottish, my father’s mother Irish) and my paternal pedigree dates back to 1650, in Surrey and Sussex. But I’m also proud to be european, and I know about our shared culture and history. GARTH GROOMBRIDGE, Southampton, Hants.