The time has come to no platform Nigel Farage – his words only fuel division

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The former Ukip leader celebrates as results indicate that the Brexit vote has won in June (Getty)

Following on from his latest comments I think it is about time that the media treat Nigel Farage with the respect he deserves. This man is a menace. There is nothing amusing about him.

I think that it is about time to make clear that this individual is a threat to our nation and what binds us together.

I don’t know what is worse – the nihilists using Islam as a means to an end in order to wage war and gain power, or our own home-grown nihilists like Farage and Katie Hopkins?

People like Farage should be on the fringes of society and not play a part in mainstream culture. Does Nick Griffin or those two berks from Britain First get away with their comments? Do they make regular appearances in the media?

The continued presence of Farage in the media encourages bigotry and hatred. His is the accepted face of xenophobia. I am no fan of Maggie Thatcher but the approach her government took to extremism – allowing them no voice – should be used.

If Nigel Farage is not treated with the disdain he deserves it is apparent more tragedy shall occur and innocent people in our country will suffer as a result of divisiveness. Let’s reflect on the past and learn lessons from the 20th Century before it is too late.

James Vinall
Derbyshire

Donald Trump’s confirmation as President-elect is worrying

While I respect the electoral college for its decision to declare Donald Trump the President-elect, I am nervous and concerned about having a man with such a thin skin running the affairs of the most powerful office on earth.

I really pray and hope the four years will pass by quickly, while he is preoccupied and distracted with Twitter, The Apprentice, Saturday Night Live and other trivial matters.

Personally, I can’t stand him. I don’t think he is qualified to run the office of the president or even to herd goats, he is that unpredictable.

As he is considering bringing back waterboarding, I think the best method to torture people would be to have them listen to him talk. Not only Americans but the entire world will be in agony dealing with him.

But as everything comes to an end, I hope his term will come to pass without an incident. We will certainly see a lot of turbulence within the next four years – as no one knows what he will come up with.

May God save us all.

Abubakar Kasim
Toronto

Our economy is dependent on migrant workers

Carolyn Fairbairn of the Confederation of British Industry is not alone in worrying about how British industry and commerce will cope post-Brexit. Many Brexit voters clearly hadn’t a clue, and one suspects the Government still hasn’t either. Have they really understood how dependent the British economy is on immigrant labour across many sectors and at all levels, from senior managers, hospital consultants, university professors, City whiz kids down to farm labourers?

We recently stayed at two excellent country house hotels in the West Country. A very significant proportion of visible staff (management, reception, restaurant), never mind the back stage staff, were in both cases French, German and Polish. These and other nationalities are even more evident in hotels and restaurants in London.

With the decline in manufacturing, the economy is crucially dependent on service industries like tourism and hospitality.

Typically of immigrants, foreign hotel staff are mainly young, ambitious people who will move on, move up, or start their own businesses; and some will take their expertise back to their own countries. Even if the Government does eventually permit existing immigrants to remain, where will the next generation of workers in industries like hospitality come from? One strongly suspects the Government hasn’t a clue.

Interestingly at one of these hotels, in the fine dining restaurant, was a young Polish man who had started at the hotel only two and a half years before as a kitchen porter, and had worked his way up through the kitchens to front of house. He was efficient, knowledgeable about the food, and charming with it. We may lament that more young Brits do not understand the excellent career opportunities in such industries, but meanwhile, where are the replacement staff going to come from?

Gavin Turner
​Gunton

We need to look to identify all suicide risks – if we do not, more lives will be lost

Sarah Wollaston MP (Monday 19 December) rightly urges the Government to “identify suicide risks”. There is one very grave one which the national suicide strategy takes no account of. There is compelling research to demonstrate that head injury survivors – even survivors of concussion – are at particular risk of suicide and should receive the same attention and supervision from medical professionals as other high risk groups, such as prisoners, mental health patients and those with a history of self-harm. A large epidemiological survey carried out in Denmark, which covered 145,440 head injury patients, noted that suicides were more than double the norm after skull fracture, triple after concussion and four times after brain haemorrhage.

If my husband and I had known this we would have been more vigilant with our own son after his head injury, and might not have lost him to suicide.

Joanna Lane
Address supplied

The EU requires urgent reform

What the Government is more and more apparently aiming for is an arrangement with the EU countries that the majority of people in the UK had always wanted, but in their total intransigence the leaders of the EU had never been able to agree to because this involved reforms within the EU which all countries had to agree to. Any attempts by, for example, Cameron to get changes, left him looking embarrassed on the sidelines, and Britons portrayed on the continent as those awkward beggars who always want to be different.

Perhaps with Brexit we will achieve a situation that we always wanted, albeit outside of the EU, with the EU fully aware that reform of the EU is now urgent.

Paul Priestley-Leach
Address supplied