Corbyn keeps trying to dodge a Final Say – he should realise we’re best served staying in the EU

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It seems Jeremy Corbyn is sifting through the Brexit allsorts, desperate to find any alternative to the one he doesn’t like: a people’s vote. His latest dodge is to throw his support behind a Norway-plus option.

This would essentially see the UK join the European Economic Area (EEA), whose members are bound by many European laws, but without any influence over their content. This would represent a serious and significant loss of sovereignty. EEA members also pay nearly as much as we do to the European budget. All of which prompted the Norwegian prime minister to question why on earth the UK would want such a relationship with the EU.

Furthermore, given her record of reneging on her promises, why would we trust Theresa May to deliver this anyway? A vote for Norway-plus does not guarantee it will actually happen since it won’t be legally binding.

Corbyn needs to face up to the fact that the best deal for Britain is the one we currently have as members of the EU. And now is the time to listen to Labour members and adhere to the motion agreed at party conference by throwing his full weight behind a people's vote.

Molly Scott Cato, Green Party MEP
Brussels

The Tory party is a racist party

Tory minister for work and pensions Amber Rudd described Diane Abbott as “coloured” in an interview with the BBC today.

And when Labour MP Naz Shah raised a question about defining Islamophobia, Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the House of Commons advised her to consult the Foreign Office. Leadsom obviously doesn’t admit the possibility that a person can be both British and Muslim.

There is a mainstream British political party which is littered with racism and, contrary to the media’s fascination with the smear campaign that seeks to associate Corbyn’s Labour with antisemitism, that party is the Conservative Party.

Sasha Simic
London N16

Corbyn is not a statesman

Please pass on my gratitude to Benjamin Kentish for his excellent piece yesterday explicating Labour’s antisemitism crisis. For me, it underlined Corbyn’s utter unfitness to be prime minister. I recall a Malcom Muggeridge interview in which he observed that Tony Benn was much more dangerous than fellow Labour MP George Brown precisely because of his unbending principles. He conspicuously lacked that capacity for pragmatic compromise which is the hallmark of the great statesman and Corbyn remains his loyal disciple.

Although it is the duty of Her Majesty's opposition to seek to bring down the government and replace it with one of their own, Labour’s official strategy of seeking a general election is pointless as long as Corbyn is their leader. Those of us who endured the turmoil of the 1970s will never vote for a left-wing government again and Corbyn has squandered his political capital with the younger generations.

All respect is due to The Independent Group. Like everyone else, I do not know what the future holds for the unhappy countries of the United Kingdom, but I greatly fear the worst is yet to come.

Bruce Napier
Willington

Higher education is oversubscribed

The reasons for high drop-out rates are doubtless many and varied but I suspect one important cause is that significant swathes of students shouldn’t be there in the first place.

To imagine that around 40-45 per cent of young adults could successfully undertake and benefit from higher education seems fanciful (historically the acceptance rate was more like 20 per cent).

All schools leavers should have properly funded access to either higher education, further education or vocational pathways, enabling them to chose which best suits them individually.

Dr Anthony Ingleton
Sheffield

Whatever happened to youth centres?

Just prior to Ken Livingstone’s narrow defeat in the 2008 London mayoral election I had written to him to suggest this practically infallible idea of mine for terminating knife and gun crime. As it happened he wrote back to say that he’d had exactly the same idea himself and had been given the already mentioned £70m by the then government. The idea was, basically, to provide youth clubs – one per 2 or 3 square miles – (as in the 1950s and 60s) which would be equipped with pool and ping-pong tables, musical instruments, artist’s materials, computer, bookshelves and books etc. It could also provide dancing classes, theatre groups, opera groups and folk-song groups (just as mine did when I was younger). It would need three or four superintendents, probably on shift bases, who might be volunteers. The purpose of these clubs would be to give the bored and jobless youths something interesting, pleasant, rewarding and social to do and even to introduce them to an activity to which they could us as the basis of an occupation.

When it was clear that Ken had lost the fight for mayor, I forgot about the whole business but the weeks dragged on – no youth club to be seen, only a continuing reportage of teen stabbings and shootings. One – a stabbing – at the bottom of my road a few days ago. I think, I hope, that you will agree with me that if the idea had been acted on, we would be seeing the effects by now and feeling much safer. It remains to be seen whether the money is still available or not.

If the scheme were inaugurated in all our major cities there would soon be a very large force of young people searching for ways, jobs, occupations, or starting free enterprise schemes where they could employ their newly discovered skills and aptitudes, and, moreover, in the process, helping this country to get off its knees.

Philip Hodgetts
London SE13

Not all Jews

Can Benjamin Kentish please explain to your readers why so many Jewish people reject the claims of antisemitism in the party that they have supported for years? I refer him to Jewish Voice for Labour, who have been consistently ignored, pilloried and abused. But perhaps they are the wrong sort of Jews.

Nicola Grove​
Horningsham