After 10 years as a green activist, helping to save the planet and civilisation, I’m fairly hardened to the destabilising of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Egypt, Greece and Palestine; to the triumphs of the military global capitalists; the unfettered secret reign of TTIP; and the drive to the bottom favoured by the English right, opposed to the protections provided by the EU and the UN. Also to the insanity of getting extreme carbon out of the ground so as to add to the poisoning of ground, water and air from shale rock and tar sands.
What I can’t get over is the decision of my government to abandon to poverty one of the best hopes of a secular democracy in the Mediterranean (3,000 Britons warned: get out of Tunisia, 10 July). Withdrawing thousands of Brits and others from the beaches and culture of Tunisia will wreck its economy. That will risk the collapse of its government into the hands of Islamic State. And if that happens, other assets such as El Djem might be dynamited. It’s not too late. Instead of moving people from the “high risks” of Tunisia to the “high risks” of London, there is another way. Why not offer Tunisia serious help with its security services (which we are quite good at). I bet Brits would flood back on such terms.
John Youatt
Youlgrave, Derbyshire
