On behalf of my generation I offer a heartfelt apology: to my children, their children and all the young. It is my generation, caught up in prejudice and unable to see beyond their small and insular horizon, that voted with their feet. It is my generation which, looking backwards at some mythical past, has decided to stop; to remain not in Europe but in time. Whatever the motives of my contemporaries in voting out, they have condemned our children to a narrower and greyer future. A future, as the bard said, more bound in shallows and in miseries. A future which will be directed by a more rightwing and protectionist governance. A future that will look after those who have, and will care much less for the voices of those who have not. This is not so much goodbye Europe as farewell Great Britain, hello little England.
Rob Parkin
Swindon, Wiltshire
• The government has received a clear message from the regions voting to leave. I therefore look forward to the speedy implementation of a coherent programme to rebalance the economy, invest in the regions, provide meaningful and affordable training and skills enhancement for the workforce and improve the education attainments of young people, thus ensuring we can maintain our place at the top table of leading economies.
Andrew Lamkowski
Taunton, Somerset
• So Scotland might leave the UK? What about a universal declaration of independence from London?
Dr Simon Sweeney
York
• With large numbers of disadvantaged people voting for an outcome which will leave them even further exposed to rightwing politics, the words of Brendan Behan come to mind. Speaking of his fellow citizens in Dublin, he said: “If it was raining soup, they’d come out with forks.”
Jeremy Bugler
Hereford
• The Labour party in the 1980s was said to have written “the longest suicide note in history”. I think the UK has just written a longer one.
Dave Headey
Faringdon, Oxfordshire
• Utterly ashamed to be English.
Dave Taylor
Purbrook, Hampshire
• The future is another country.
Dr Simon Roberts
University of Nottingham
• Merde.
Peter Kaan
Exeter
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
