Europe don’t lose hope yet, 2017 is just around the corner

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Matteo Renzi, pictured at one of his 'Basta un Si' rallies last month, is resigning as prime minister (Getty)

The resignation of Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi following that nation’s referendum on the constitution, caps off what has proven a challenging year for the EU. These anti-establishment uprisings might not end there as several European countries go to the polls over the next year.

In March the Dutch hold their parliamentary elections, with the anti-Islamic Party for Freedom, led by Geert Wilders, standing on a pledge to “de-Islamify” the Netherlands and hold a Nexit vote. His party is running neck and neck with Mark Rutte’s Liberal Party.

In May the French go to the polls, with the presidential race seen as being between the far right Front Natinal, under Marine Le Pen, running on an anti-EU and anti-immigration ticket, and the Republic candidate, Francois Fillon.

However, against this background there are some positives for Europhiles. The Austrians have just voted for a new president, with Alexander Van der Bellen of the Greens defeating Norbert Hofer of the anti-immigration Freedom Party.

In September the Germans cast their votes, with the backdrop of the immigration controversy. The far-right anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany is expected to make gains, but Merkel is expected to win a fourth term if she decides to run again.

Next year could prove a pivotal year for the EU, but it is no stranger to such challenges and my prediction is that it will emerge the stronger for it.

Alex Orr

Edinburgh

Vegetarians are making a meal of the new five pound note

The agitation against the new five pound note is the most trivial populist movement of late. Vegetarians and animal rights activists surely recognise that there are far more serious issues for them to address than the presence of minute levels of tallow in the manufacturing process of these bank notes. All that it achieves is to make a mockery of justifiable concerns for animal rights.

Graham Hayes

Address supplied

We have a democratic right to complain about Brexit

Your leading letter on Monday criticised people who voted to remain in the “European Community” as being unaccepting of the democratic result of the referendum and seeking to stop progress towards implementing it.

The writer is confused as to what he was voting to leave. The European Community (EC) was merged into the European Union (EU) in The Treaty of Lisbon in 2009 when the EC ceased to exist. As the EC does not exist, it's not possible to vote to leave it.

With regard to the referendum to leave or remain in the EU, there was no clear, defined, written description as to what exactly is involved and the ramifications of it, hence the reason why so many people abstained or voted to remain.

I object to the suggestion that I cannot accept a slim majority decision of a referendum, which was not legally binding, yet appears to be taking Britain down a path which Scotland and Northern Ireland do not want. It therefore seems only right that the electorate should be given the opportunity to vote on the terms of any negotiations. I and many others, cannot say at the moment whether leaving or remaining is good for the UK as a whole, which is why there is such debate.

Linda Johnson

Yorkshire

Colin Bower's classic Leave lament that “Remainers are acting like spoilt children”, is not only offensive, it is inaccurate.

There is an assumption that Brexit is the will of the people. But that is unclear. During the campaign a big red bus toured the country with the words “we send £350m per week to the EU, let's fund the NHS instead”.

For many undecided voters, and there were a lot of them, the choice between funding the NHS and funding the EU was enough to push them towards a Leave vote. Many election promises are impossible to keep once the full facts are known. But the speed with which the Leave campaign dropped the promise (within seconds of the result) suggests they knew before the vote that their key pledge would never be honoured.

So how can such a close result reflect the will of the people when so many were manipulated by deliberate misinformation?

Mark Grey

London

Colin Bower accuses Remain supporters of being childish in wanting to overturn or lessen the impact of the Brexit vote. However he chooses to ignore a number of points.

Firstly, our country has been a member of the EU for a very long time, most of my lifetime, and during that time there has been a continued campaigning to leave by both Conservative Party members and many others. Were these people being “chlidish” in not accepting the original decision to join and the subsequent referendum in 1975 to remain in the EU? No, they were exercising their democratic right to petition for change just as current Remainers are doing.

Secondly, we have general elections every five years at which time the country is given a chance to make a democratic decision about which party will be the next government. After each election I remember, there has been an expectation that the parties not in government will continue to campaign for their political points of view and to mitigate the impact, in their opinions, of negative government policy. How does Mr Bower think that this is different in some way to the result of the recent referendum, especially when there is no plan for another vote in five years or at any other time?

Thirdly, the result of the EU referendum cannot be regarded as an overwhelmingly decisive with a 48/52 per cent split. This is far from the 67/32 per cent split in 1975, and that losing 32 per cent carried on campaigning.

The Leave campaign made a great deal of noise about democratic control of our country during the campaign but appears all too willing to shout down people who don't share their opinion: that's not democracy. So to Leavers I say, yes, you won on the day but I will continue to believe that we all have a right to choose to disagree with that result and its effects in the future.

Nick Haward

Address supplied