The truth about Brexit is that it all comes down to our relationship with Germany

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Because the people have been conditioned to be jealous of Germany and to be reflexively hostile, it’s inevitably infected the electorate’s view of the EU (EPA)

Patrick Cockburn suggests that Brexiteers have no desire to reestablish the empire and he’s right. The average Brexiteer is basically a working class voter who’s noticed that their job prospects are bleak, possibly because of a flood of imported labour. Cockburn skirts around the fundamental issue though.

The problem with Britain is that for over 100 years the UK hasn’t found a way to figure out a healthy relationship with Germany.

If you look at the TV listings for example, the Orwellian prolefeed is literally nonstop crowing about how the wonderful virtuous British stood up to the despicable wicked German bullies. Dad’s Army, Who Dares Wins, Bridge Too Far, Defiance, Darkest Hour... programmes and films some of which we grew up with as background noise. Getting beyond fiction and comedy, we have documentaries churned out about our conflicts with the Germans and how they were such vile fanatics, produced, often narrated, by distinguished Oxbridge professors. It’s all self-mythologising bunkum.

Britain’s special status as the plucky defender of liberal democracy in the 20th century is junk national mythology that both the mainstream right and left can console themselves with as the country declines in relation to Germany.

Because the people have been conditioned to be jealous of Germany and to be reflexively hostile, it’s inevitably infected the electorate’s view of the EU to a fatal degree. Brexit is just the terminal manifestation of a schizophrenic national identity crisis found among our heavily propagandised working and middle classes.

What did the press and politicos think would happen when a deceived, bewildered people got to vote in a referendum that gave them a chance to split away from perceived German domination?

Daniel McGrath
Oxford

The baffling logic of Brexiteers

Am I missing something? Brexiteers want to “take back control”. They sell that ideal to the electorate mainly in terms of controlling the movement of people into the UK.

Brexiteers also claim not to want a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. But they are wholly opposed to any backstop as an insurance policy that will guarantee the absence of a hard border into the future.

The solution the Brexiteers are proposing for the movement of goods between the EU and UK on the island of Ireland lies with some yet-to-be-invented electronic technology.

Are they also hoping to control immigration by inserting some kind of electronic chip under the skin of everyone in the rest of the world who might be tempted to cross from the EU into the UK via any of the 208 crossings along the 310-mile border?

D Maughan Brown
York

The UK is not doing right by Gibraltar

Gibraltar has been put in an awkward position. Like Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, the majority of business leaders, trade unions and citizens voted in favour of staying in the EU.

However, unlike other parts of the UK, Gibraltar is not represented in Westminster and is not part of the UK. As a consequence it cannot join any anti-Brexit coalition to have a say on Brexit or influence negotiations trajectories, the withdrawal agreement or the revocation of Article 50.

Like Northern Ireland, the most contentious issue with Gibraltar is the border and the continuing spat with Spain over its sovereignty. Gibraltar remains one of the last residues of the British Empire. It has no border with the UK but it is largely seen as a symbol of the empire and its colonial past and like Cyprus, it offers Britain with a naval foothold on the Mediterranean.

So sovereignty here remains a bedrock of British position. I personally do not foresee any change regarding Gibraltar, its sovereignty, or its desire to remain part of the UK, and do not see any changes in respect of freedom of movement and goods.

The only challenge comes if the Rock remains part of European customs and trade union and whether its 28,000 residents retain their full rights within the EU with the EU’s insistence on direct negotiations between Madrid and London to solve this issue and Britain’s rejection of any notion of joint sovereignty of the rock with Spain.

Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob
London NW2

MPs shouldn’t trust Theresa May’s promise of cash for their constituencies

It is all very well for Theresa May to promise Labour MPs such as John Mann sums of taxpayers’ money for their constituencies in the hopes that they’ll support her Brexit deal. But where is the money coming from given the hit to the exchequer from the exodus of businesses abroad?

When she comes to pay up Old Mother Hubbard will go to the cupboard only to find it bare.

Roger Hinds
Surrey

France is right to limit mobile phone use – we should follow suit

The French have got the right idea in banning mobile phones from schools. Children are distracted from concentrating when engaged with other mobile users and it is also distracting for those close by.

Socially, the use of mobile phones disrupts personal interaction. There isn’t a film or TV show that doesn’t show extensive use of mobile phones, and they always immediately get through to the party the caller wants to contact. This must reinforce the habitual annoying use of mobile phones.

The fear of missing out, or “fomo” is endemic and sad to observe in both children and adults. My friend, who has three young children, told me that the same conversation was had by all three children one evening from the same friend, as if her children could not talk to each other to relay the story. Just shows how much time is wasted by imparting non-information.

There ought to be times, areas and situations when mobile phones have to be turned off or left at home to maintain a sense of order, where individuals or groups can concentrate without the constant interruptions from mobile phones. It is so annoying.

Keith Poole
Basingstoke

I can’t ever remember agreeing with Nick Gibb about anything educational, but on the crucial issue of mobile phones in schools, I find myself in total agreement.

There exists reputable and ever-growing research evidence on the harm done to children by these technologies – physiologically, psychologically and socially – and it’s simply delusory that they represent unproblematic human “progress”.

The addictive and distracting nature of “technologies of instantaneity” and the commercial vested interests pushing them make for a truly toxic mix, against which children simply do not possess the developmental maturity to protect themselves and make healthy, informed decisions about them. And that many adults seem also to fall into this latter category, and to be in complete denial about the “shadow” side of “social media” technologies’ anti-social tendencies, merely exacerbates the grave problem modern culture is facing.

When we see nurseries invaded by iPads, and the scarcely believable iPotty for babies, surely we have to realise that something is very seriously wrong. As the Jesuits rightly had it, start (hook) them young, and you have them for life.

Yet scientists often seem to be in uncritical collusion with these technologies, entranced by the seductions of technological “progress”. For a rare exception, may I refer your readers to the full version of a speech that neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield gave a few weeks ago in a House of Lords debate, titled “Digital Technology and the Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People”.

There needs to be a fully informed public debate about these technologies – their cons as well as their pros; and if there isn’t, and a mindless, uncritical embracing of “modernity, right or wrong” continues, then we could be doing untold damage to the current and future generations of children. For our humanity must always, always, come before the machine.

Dr Richard House – chartered psychologist and childhood campaigner