Brexit day will be an incredibly sad occasion. The loss of the many economic, social and environmental benefits that membership of the largest single market in the world brings will leave us all the poorer in so many ways. Benefits associated with the free movement of goods, capital, services and people across the EU have been immense. Exiting is such a needless act of self-destruction, hitting the poorest hardest. It is a move I predict we will go on to regret.
Pro-EU events being held on Friday do, however, afford us the opportunity to celebrate the benefits that membership has brought – peace, stability and prosperity. The EU flag will also still fly outside the Scottish parliament.
Pro-EU campaigners like myself are now in the same position that those who campaigned for the UK to leave what was the EEC were 47 years ago. I would urge the EU to keep a light on for us. The fight continues – and one day, I am certain, these efforts will be rewarded and we will return.
Alex Orr
Edinburgh
• I am very sad to see the UK leaving the EU, as are huge numbers of my European colleagues. I am British and have worked for the EEC – and then the EU – since I graduated in 1973. I retired several years ago. I remember the positive buzz in the early years of membership.
But then the rot set in. The UK began to think it was special, too good for the rest of them. Money back, opt-outs and so on. In the 1980s we also saw the beginning of Euromyths and the media’s enthusiasm for Brussels-bashing. UK governments did not have the courage to emphasise the benefits of membership, and even laid the blame for many of their own unpopular decisions on the EU. The British public still think “health and safety” is an EU invention.
This arrogant trend finally resulted in David Cameron’s pusillanimous referendum. The campaign was ridiculously vague, based on lies, and serious malpractices have still not been investigated. The last three years have been a misery for those of us who know the reality (and were not allowed to vote in the referendum) and had to listen to the lies spouted about the organisation we have been proud to work for.
The outlook for the UK is not good. The brave new world the government is promising could well become the desperate flounderings of a has-been island. What a waste.
Dave Skinner
Tervuren, Belgium
• As the curtain falls on 47 years of EU membership most media attention has focused on the impact on this country, whether the negative trade consequences and lost influence, or instead on the boundless opportunities for a new “global Britain”. Little attention has been paid to the risks and damage to our neighbours.
The EU will be diplomatically, economically and strategically weakened by us leaving. For internal and external security, the risks are unknown, but most commentators see only damage to trust, partnership and capability in addressing threats in a dangerously unstable environment.
An enterprise that the Nobel laureate John Hume described as “the best example in the history of the world of conflict resolution”, itself justly a recipient of the Nobel peace prize in 2012, will suffer gravely, giving succour to its enemies both within and afar.
For Ireland the undermining of the Good Friday agreement is frightening. The 30 years in which 3,000 people were killed is euphemistically named “the Troubles”. Those with short memories who have campaigned to leave would do well to watch the BBC documentary Peter Taylor: My Journey through the Troubles’. Images from Strabane, not broadcast at the time, reveal a town that resembled Bosnia’s Mostar in 1995, such was the scale of devastation.
Nationalism and nostalgia are the ghosts that stalk Europe. Sadly, we may act in haste and repent at leisure.
Dr Simon Sweeney
University of York
• Visiting Brussels last week, I was shown the Chapel for Europe, where on Friday there will be a Brexit day service to “give thanks for the good over the past five decades, to reflect on the closing of this chapter, to pray for those who work in and with the EU and UK governments, and to seek wisdom and vision for the future”. A bit different from projecting a countdown clock on to the front of Downing Street.
Susan Tomes
Edinburgh
• As we are now heading down the toilet, should we call this B-day?
Emma Fisher
Bath
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
• Do you have a photo you’d like to share with Guardian readers? Click here to upload it and we’ll publish the best submissions in the letters spread of our print edition
