Will Hutton’s excellent article (“Nissan is an early sign”, Comment) should be compulsory reading for the immigration-lite Labour MPs who are becoming outriders for the rush to hard Brexit by Theresa May, the fourth covert ops Brexiter. It is a dangerous triumph of irrational racist ideology that the mantra of “controls on immigration” has led to vote Leave and may precipitate exit from the single market.
Immigration is already strongly controlled. Half of immigration comes from outside the EU and is tightly restricted – Britain competes with Hungary for inhumanity towards refugees. EU workers make an enormous economic and social contribution through their skills and labour; through their taxation, they help fund the services that they are accused of squeezing. The undercutting of wages and social tensions have been greatly exaggerated; those most hostile to immigration live in largely migrant-free areas; we are not in passport-free Schengen.
Sadly, the Remainers, as with major party leaders over many years, failed to make the case for immigration, allowing decades of tabloid fear-mongering, Ukip racist poison and Brexiter populism to dictate the narrative. Corbyn has made a good start. We now need a high-profile, cross-party alliance, engaging academia, business, trade unions, faith communities and civil society, to fight for diverse, multicultural Britain and for free movement.
Gideon Ben-Tovim
Senior fellow in sociology
University of Liverpool
Will Hutton concludes his lament for the effects of Brexit by noting that in many countries there is a significant barrier to constitutional change, but that previously, in Britain “the constitution interests only obsessives”. I’ll plead guilty to that: my opposition to the “European project” has always been a constitutional one.
Our European friends – I use the word deliberately – have always been more aware of constitutional issues, having had far more experience of constitutional change and the damage that weak or misguided constitutional arrangements can have, up to and contributing to war and devastation.
I do not blame them for seeking a new constitutional disposition that promises a better future and they have been much more open about it and not pretended that the EU is really an economic arrangement. In Britain, the need especially for, ultimately, a European superstate has seemed much less obvious, so, from the 1960s on, politicians have had to pretend that it is about something else.
John Old
Nuneaton
William Keegan is entitled to his view but as an Observer reader who voted to leave the EU, I am a little tired of being told that I didn’t really know what I was voting for. Even more irritating is the claim that Britain didn’t really vote to leave as only 37% of those entitled to vote voted Leave. Last week, Mr Keegan claimed that in reality it is more likely that it is only 25% who wish to leave.
Apart from this disingenuous use of statistics, what would he have claimed if the vote had been the other way round: that Britain had not voted to stay because only 37% of those entitled to vote had voted Remain? Of course not. He would be claiming victory for the Remainers and doubtless objecting to any claiming the contrary. I must say that I was hoping for a significant majority either way so that this sort of carping would not continue from either side. The closeness of the result means that isn’t happening, but the fact is that there was a majority for leaving so let’s get on with making a success of that. I for one acknowledge the difficulties but am confident in the future outside the EU.
Ian Langworthy
Huntingdon
