Fear, anger and the future of Britain in Europe

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/19/fear-anger-and-the-future-of-britain-in-europe

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I read Franklin Medhurst’s poignant letter with interest and much sadness (16 June). I am an immigrant, of German and Italian nationalities. I grew up in the heart of the EU, as the daughter of EU civil servants. At school, I saw a harmonious mingling of cultures and languages and was taught many subjects in mixed nationality groups in a foreign language (English). When I came to the UK to study, I fell in love – with a man and with Yorkshire – and have stayed ever since. I have made the UK my home. My British husband and I have two tri-nationality (Italian, German, British) daughters. I have worked and paid taxes as an employee and I now run my own business helping improve children’s mental health. I contribute to society and have always felt welcome here – until now. The growing wave of angry xenophobia is saddening and maddening.

A UK that votes leave is not the UK that I have made my home over the past 26 years. Voting leave is tantamount to saying: “I’m happy to risk destabilising the longest period of peace Europe has known.” It means weakening Europe, and the world, to the threat posed by Putin and by terrorists. I have never felt less welcome here and more frightened. Voting leave is not a mistake that can be undone at the next general election. It is a decision that will have a potentially devastating impact for generations to come. But most of all, voting leave will mean leaving a piece of humanity behind.Frederika RobertsDoncaster

• Like many others I share the sentiments of Franklin Medhurst (Report, 17 June) and his understanding about Britain’s relationship with our neighbours across the Channel. We must absolutely not go back to a Europe of competing nations and empires but should maintain that essential forum of the EU to resolve any differences, for all its current shortcomings. Reading the press and talking to people, there is a clear view that older citizens will vote to leave the EU. Well, I’m 78 years old and will be voting to remain both for the reasons that Mr Medhurst so passionately argued and because the future of this country is not for the elderly but for the young to decide, and most of the young citizens I have talked to have been in favour of remaining. They feel both British and European, as I do.

When the Brexit camp talk about “Give us back our Britain”, what precise model do they have in mind from some past golden age, because as far as I am concerned a vibrant multicultural Britain is far preferable to most of what went before. Certainly, immigration is an issue, but this can be dealt with best from within the EU.David BishopWybunbury, Cheshire

• I was just a little too young to serve in the armed forces during the war, and in any case was in a reserved occupation as an aircraft apprentice. But I share Franklin Medhurst’s view on the peace and stability the EU has brought to the continent. How different the world would have been had something similar to the EU been created post-1918. However, one point Mr Medhurst did not include in his letter was the contribution of many other nationalities to the cause, for example the Polish fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain. The Polish plumbers and builders that are supposed to be such a threat to our way of life today are their descendants. What I do not understand is why older people are in favour of Brexit, according to the polls. Surely they, like Mr Medhurst and myself, should be the ones to remember all this.Frank JacksonHarlow, Essex

• My father fought and died in the second world war. He was killed by a German sniper in a tiny hamlet near Vire in Normandy on 3 August 1944. He was buried in Bayeux. I and my family make frequent visits to the cemetery there. A stark reminder of the horrors of war. To leave the EU would be to betray the legacy of those who gave their lives to secure our freedom. I do not want my father’s sacrifice (he was a volunteer) to be sullied by the likes of Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. A motley crew of self-serving individuals who are deluding themselves and the public as to what would happen should Britain vote to leave the EU. United we stand. Divided we fall. A cliche, but true in this context.Michele Holmes (aged 73)Wroxham, Norfolk

• Unlike Mr Medhurst, I am young and have never fought in a war. Some would argue I’ve never fought for anything, probably owing largely to the sacrifices made by men of Mr Medhurst’s generation. Yet, I am fighting now. Fighting to persuade whomever I can that leaving Europe is the right choice. Aside from the world wars, there were other European conflicts of the 20th century; countries which fought for independence and political ideals, only now to see the fruits of those struggles usurped by masters of a different kind. What about the peoples of countries conquered during the second world war, people who now only see their former conquerors gain at their expense? 

Yes, the EU has prevented conflict and created a stability of some kind, but at what cost? Its expanding borders and powers are now increasing the threat of bloc-style conflict with other world powers. As a boy Europe offered the excitement of having such diversity on one’s doorstep. Over the last few decades that diversity has been increasingly eroded by centralised European power; a power that increasingly disrespects the histories, cultures and attitudes of individual member states.Paul O’SullivanBristol

• When I voted in 1945 to help bring in a landslide Labour government, we all believed in a better world. We thought that we had fought for it every day of the last six years. The bombing had laid bare the squalor in which many of us lived. The strange idea of a free health service was put through by a determined Welshman, Aneurin Bevan. It had nothing to do with the rest of Europe, then or now. It is a national treasure and depends entirely on the government of the day. As Jeremy Corbyn says, we should be leading Europe instead of leaving it.Anne Horatia PiperWytham, Oxfordshire

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