Letters: Fear, not complacency, will win the EU debate

The following letters appear in the 6th February edition of the Independent

Small firms looking to expand overseas say they need clarity on Britain’s future in Europe (Getty)

It is very worrying that Lord Rose, leader of the EU referendum “In” camp) is not only apparently complacent about a “comfortable victory”, but also is promising not to run a campaign based on the fear of the impact of exit (report, 5 February).

Surely fear is what this whole debate is about: fear of ever-closer union and of floods of immigrants on one side, and fear of the unknown on the other. Fear is a perfectly respectable emotion and is likely to drive most of the voter choices in the referendum. Fear is also a very rational response to the exit option. A decision to leave the EU would be effectively irrevocable.

Since we have no real idea of what an independent UK would look like, or even if it could remain united, we should rightly be fearful of the consequences. “Beating the drum”, parading “the facts” and relying on “common sense” (Lord Rose again) do not sound to me like a convincing campaign. I strongly suggest that the In camp gets real.

David Harvey

Tynemouth, Tyne and Wear

Larry Johnston (Letters, 5 February) is right when he says: “The Union is meant to be a co-operative. If each nation is concerned only with self-interest there is not … a Union”. Exactly. Whether it is Luxemburg and Ireland providing low tax status to the likes of Amazon and Google, French farmers getting special deals, the UK wanting special status on immigration or welfare benefits for non-UK citizens – and I could go on – it is clear that the EU is anything but a cohesive union. The EU is a hotch-potch of differing national interests, opposite ideological stances (to integrate or not to integrate) and is increasingly failing in its aim to become a unified continent (see the widely differing views on Russia and the refugee crisis).

If I thought it was a project that was steadily moving towards its stated aims I would vote to stay in. Since, in my view, it is splintering along many fault-lines I will vote to leave the EU before it drags us down with it.

Let us leave now while we have the economic clout to create our own trading relations with the world.

Mike Jenkins

Bromley, Greater London

It’s surely the mark of an exceedingly poor politician that they find themselves so bemused and befuddled by their own manoeuvrings that they announce they might campaign for something they clearly do not want. Yet this is exactly what is happening before our eyes with David Cameron.

For small and petty reasons, mostly to do with assuaging the lunatic little Englanders inside the Conservative party, the PM has embarked on an egotistical and reckless exercise to further destabilise the one postwar institution that even the most one-eyed xenophobe should appreciate has brought us peace and prosperity for three generations now.

Take your dusty old atlas off the bookshelf and see for yourself how for the first time in 2,000 years armies have stopped rampaging across Europe. How our mutual economic dependency has taken precedence over nationalism and self interest. We are wiser, richer and safer inside the EU, and any prime minister who would risk all this because of an annoying whine from the benches behind him is a very poor one indeed.

Paul Greer

Southampton

Wading my way through the grimness of Friday’s offerings – small businesses facing astronomical legal fees, the plight of Middle Eastern refugees and dead whales on East Anglian beaches – being asked by Isabel Hardman to “pity those Tory MPs, torn between leader and local party” (Voices, 5 February) came just a little too far into the procedure. I was reserving an atom of sympathy for a Premiership footballer who’d hurt his leg and I wasn’t going to give that up without a fight.

James Vickers

Redcar, Cleveland

University admissions charade gets worse

Richard Garner (4 February) is right that the rush to recruit students who have not achieved inflated predicted grades in a market-driven system may dilute quality, but he misses one thing: as a result of reforms now being rolled out, the problem is about to get a whole lot worse.

Michael Gove’s decision to decouple AS-levels from A-levels (so that AS performance at the end of the lower sixth no longer contributes to A-level success a year later), removes the one clear benchmark by which admissions tutors could predict A-level grades. Under the outgoing system, the astute admissions tutor could cross-check teacher-generated predicted grades against actual AS outcomes – which have proved to be a stronger predictor of final A-level results. In future, they will not have this option.

Delaying the granting of university offers until after final A-level grades may return a measure of integrity and dependability to the process, but it comes at a cost: the likely loss of much of the (often informal) advice and guidance that students receive because their offers emerge during the school year. This could do further disservice to those least likely to progress to higher education – young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Whatever the crisis over student grades, education secretaries really ought to study a different subject: the law of unintended outcomes.

Dr Tony Breslin

Hertford

Blaming teachers and parents for overpredicting A-level grades is only half the story. There is an increasing number of higher education providers entering the market, one of the lowest birth rates affecting numbers of 17- to 18-year-olds going into higher education, and more demanding A-levels. Universities are accepting more students with lower grades because there is a simple supply issue.

If students know that many top universities will accept them as long as they are predicted the grades asked, you can see where the pressure on schools is coming from – indirectly from the universities. They all want to show AAA in their prospectuses but they know that they won’t always get those grades in the current climate.

Anthony Fitzgerald

London SW18

Calm down about catwalk at the Abbey

It may be news to you that Westminster Abbey is neither owned nor run by the Church of England. It is a Royal Peculiar, and therefore comes directly under the jurisdiction of the Sovereign. It is staffed by clergy of the Church of England, certainly; but the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury have no authority there. If either of them comes to officiate at a service, they have to be specifically invited.

So the critical comments by the Rev. Peter Owen-Jones are irrelevant (“House of Gucci to stage show in house of God”, 4 February). Westminster Abbey, like every other parish church and cathedral in the country, has to be self-supporting. Every year it has to raise the money for its upkeep, its ministry and its wage bill. Contrary to what many people believe, there is no magic pot of money for it to draw on.

For the Abbey to secure a contract to allow a fashion show in its cloisters seems to me to be an admirable stewardship of its resources.

The Rev John Williams

West Wittering, West Sussex

Here in Lymington we are trying to save a popular local church, designed by an eminent Edwardian architect, from the decision by the parochial church council to turn it into a nursery. This will necessitate the introduction of false walls, ceiling and floor into the interior of this Grade II listed building. The little church is an architectural gem much favoured for weddings and all church services. Only yesterday it was packed for a thanksgiving service for the life of a local postman.

We are fast becoming a secular society and unless the Church stands firm against the misuse of its sacred buildings, the prediction of Lord Carey’s that within a generation

the church will be extinct will prove to be true.

Joan Hawkes

Lymington, Hampshire

The real horse whisperer

In your report on the “canine boredom epidemic” (5 February) you quote animal behaviour counsellor Sarah Fisher saying: “I’ve never seen our dogs or horses this bored before in 20 years. Horses that have lived happily outside before are saying ‘I actually can’t cope with this mud and wet any more’ … We’re turning them out of their stables and they’re saying ‘Get me back in straight away’.”

Never mind the photograph of the bored dog on your front page – I want to see a picture of the talking horse.

Andrew Baker

Harrow, Greater London

Less than sage advice from Age Concern

I have taken exception to Age Concern’s web advice on hearing problems for a long time because of their endorsement of commercial firms in order to get a cut of the profit (report 5 February). However, at the age of 87, the advice from them that I do my utmost to avoid is to “act now to avoid rising funeral costs”.

Wyn H Jones

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire