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Your support makes all the difference.If I was a politician in the UK at present I would be very careful about taking the perceived moral high ground over Venezuela. Their words and intransigence could come back to bite them.
Disastrous governance – as some of us are aware – is not just a foreign problem. Just look at the UK as the deadline looms for leaving the EU. The complacency and posturing is mind-boggling – we are no further forward since the unprecedented defeat for Theresa May the other week.
Should we crash out, the UK could face food shortages, medicine shortages, troops on the streets and a hard border in Northern Ireland. There would be traffic congestion, our airports may not even function and we face civil unrest or worse.
Every problem, bar one, I have listed is happening now in said South American country – the only difference after 29 March is that they will probably have enough bananas and we shall probably not. Our woeful government has got to stop talking nonsense, face up to reality and revoke Article 50.
Robert Boston
Kingshill
Trump should focus on his own country
Is it possible that President Trump has not realised that there might be a connection the US’s massive destabilisation efforts in so many of the countries in “its hemisphere” and the number of people fleeing their countries and heading for the States?
It surprises and disappoints me that there is so little comment about this.
Tony Baker
Thirsk
Matt Greene’s discussion of antisemitism is moving
Having just read Matt Greene’s moving article in The Independent I felt I had to write in support, as it almost moved me to tears that there is still antisemitism in this country. I just think how awful it must be for Jewish people reading the part about the proposal from a Labour official (after the Pittsburgh shooting in a synagogue) that kept being thwarted to the point of it being almost meaningless: “Steve suggested an amendment to the motion that condemned all far-right, neo-Nazi activities while noting Bowers’ ‘long history of antisemitic views and deep hatred for Jewish people’, but this proposal was also deemed unacceptable.”
I was never quite sure who to believe in the antisemitism row in the Labour Party, although I veered more towards believing it did exist. But after reading that article I feel I want to shout from the rooftops to all Jewish people that we’re not all like that (the majority of UK citizens, hopefully) and you are very welcome in this country alongside any person who has suffered from vile extremism.
Also, going back to the Labour topic, if I were a member of that party I would definitely leave and join the much more inclusive and kinder Liberal Democrats. If enough people vote for them in an election they will be elected. You just need to have faith.
Claire Dreyer
Address supplied
The Tories should be wary of their comments
Regarding the possibility of martial law, can I ask for a prediction? If there is a Tory-imposed martial law as a result of a Tory Brexit, how many votes will the Tories get in the next election? My guess is less than a hundred.
Alan Pack
Canterbury
A solution to the backstop
Michel Barnier says that in the event of no deal, “we will have to find an operational way of carrying out checks and controls without putting back in place a border”.
Therefore Theresa May should request that to the withdrawal agreement there be added a statement to the effect that once the backstop has been in force for a year the UK or EU may at any time request there be put in place border arrangements similar to those (referred to by Barnier) which would be put in place were the UK to leave without a deal on 29 March. The EU can hardly claim these arrangements are unacceptable, given that they are what will be the case if there is no deal.
Dan Dennis
Reading
We may be no worse off without the social media giants
I totally sympathise with Matt Hancock’s willingness to ban social media companies if they don’t behave. After quite a few years on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram I deleted my accounts – well, I think I did; one is never quite sure.
This was not as a reaction to the time I had wasted on them: after all, one is responsible for one’s own actions in that sense. Rather, it was in disgust at their refusal to effectively police the content they permitted.
I simply didn’t believe their bleatings that the volume was too great to properly control. Nor was I happy with their reported reluctance to pay UK tax.
However, a license to operate under strict rules, and an independent regulating body – both paid for by the companies – might be a best first step. If that didn’t work, or they didn’t agree, banning could create an opening for an ethical entrant to the social media market.
Patrick Cosgrove
Bucknell
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