Don’t panic

If you hadn’t heard of the Spanish Armada, Napoleon, the Corn Laws, the Kaiser or Hitler, you could be forgiven for thinking Brexit is the worst crisis in our history. It’s peanuts in comparison.

The UK tradition is to start badly and succeed in the end and Monday’s votes signalled this too. It prompted Matt Frei of Channel 4 News to quote an EU mandarin as saying “it was a brilliant example of democracy, it’s just a pity it’s so late in the day”. But is it?

Indicative voting two years ago would have been ruined by lack of urgency, no “May Deal” to compare with, and party politics. If a Customs Union is adopted, the whole point about cutting our own trade deals is lost, and no agreement means a hard Brexit or two years of navel-contemplating “extension” mayhem.

The realistic, sensible choices are the May Deal, or staying in the EU. Mrs May has now proved this to everyone, including the EU. We seem to have forgotten the main sticking point is the Irish backstop. It’s surely time for Leo Veradkar, the man with most to lose from a no-deal Brexit, to get real and drop his objections. And for 35 SNP MPS to realise that posturing on Brexit won’t get them Indyref2 and could lose them the 2021 Holyrood elections.

ALLAN SUTHERLAND Willow Row, Stonehaven

As Brexit consumes Westminster, Britain is falling apart. Beneath the clamour, austerity tightens its grip on key sectors of our public life such as the health service. The vulnerable are experiencing it today – everyone is going to feel it tomorrow.

Tory backwoodsmen describe walking away as a “clean Brexit”, but the EU rightly warns there’s no such thing as an “orderly” no-deal. It will mean queues at all points of entry, defaulting on debts and international treaties, as well as a health crisis.

Yet the outward mood of the millions opposed to Brexit remains weary, subdued and fatalistic. As our social fabric frays and the economic and social damage of leaving becomes clear, the young – the real victims of Brexit – exhibit a strange passivity.

(REV DR) JOHN CAMERON Howard Place, St Andrews