Still time for a settlement

ONE Remainer MP is vocal in her indignation about being called “traitor” and “Nazi”, which you can understand, and there is cause for all of us to be concerned about the possibility of serious unrest and quite possibly violence unless we are out of the EU at the end of March.

We seem to be building up an intensity of political bitterness that has not been experienced here since Stuart days and one wonders if the political classes realise quite what a volcano they have beneath them.

It’s not just a difference of opinion like those we have had over nationalisation/privatisation or rearmament in the ’30s but a feeling of betrayal best compared to the way eastern Europe turned on its Communist rulers once the Red Army was not there to support them.

In a much more dangerous way it’s like the old joke about the dog: “One word from me and he does as he pleases”.

Eastern Europe had its “People’s Republics” and “Democratic Republics”, even universal suffrage but few people felt any sense of participation.

We had a referendum but we saw the negotiations with the EU conducted in a manner that was bound to fail and all we could do was rage impotently. Now the failure is likely to be exploited to defeat Brexit. It’s not too late for sense to prevail. If Parliament rejects Mrs May’s disastrous proposal and sends a clear message to the EU that we want genuine settlement on future terms of trade without all their strings, things can settle, in this country and internationally.

Otherwise we are walking into something most undesirable and regrettable. dreamed of brine now they all lay on the tides of time salty winds do carry the cries of gull with souls of fish who now drift on lowly seas.

DAVID SMITH via email