Letters: Refugee crisis could break the EU

The following letters appear in the 16th March edition of the Independent

A refugee family falls into a river they try cross on their way to Macedonia from a makeshift camp at the Greek-Macedonian border, near the Greek village of Idomeni, where thousands of refugees are stranded by the Balkan border blockade

The multimillion costs associated with the attempts to deal with the exodus of people fleeing the devastation in Syria and surrounding regions poses a real threat to the long-term stability and viability of the European Union.

Should the European Union implode as a result of these pressures, then the massive costs will undoubtedly be borne by the few countries that have the resources to meet them, one of which is the UK.

It would be prudent therefore, to take the opportunity provided by the referendum to divorce ourselves from the European Union, as whatever the uncertainties and costs that are likely to be incurred by leaving sooner, they will pale into insignificance if, or rather when, the European Union breaks up.

Leonard Powell

Thelnetham, Suffolk

Daily we see dreadful pictures of refugee families suffering terrible hardships in camps both in Greece and Turkey and on the borders of Syria.

Back in September of last year David Cameron pledged that “Britain would take thousands more refugees”.

Well before Christmas we in the Adur Dsitrict Council area were told that we would be taking several families to start with. So where are they? I know that nearby Horsham and Crawley have all been told that they would receive 10 families each, but have none to date. How long must it take to bring these people here?

Germany and France have been welcoming many of these people for some time now. Why are we so slow to help?

I know that Brighton has a few families, Scotland has welcomed some, and I expect there have been some in other parts of the country.

It has been said to me that it takes time to check the identities of these people to make sure that we are not bringing terrorists in, but I really feel that these are just excuses. I really think, as a country, we should be thoroughly ashamed of our pathetic response so far.

Penny Joseph

Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex

The myth that backs Osborne’s cuts

So the Chancellor prepares to announce a fresh round of cuts to public spending after warning that the global economic outlook is at its bleakest since the financial crash of 2008.

How is it that George Osborne can only react to global events, yet according to Tory electioneering last May, the world financial crash in 2008 was the fault of the last Labour government? Alistair Darling was obviously more omnipotent than any of us dared imagine.

Peddle a myth often enough and people start believing it. Especially when no one mounts an effective challenge to it.

Debbie Stamper

Epsom, Surrey

Back to a future of Tory underfunding

Tim Paramour’s article (14 March) about the low morale within the teaching profession reminds me of the similar situation during the last period of Tory government.

Gifted and hitherto dedicated teachers were queueing up for early retirement or leaving the profession to become life assurance salespersons, bathroom renovators, builders, bus drivers and the like. Added to the seemingly deliberate encouragement to hold teachers in low esteem rather than award them professional rates of pay, there was a chronic underfunding of schools generally.

Many of us subsidised the system by providing our own teaching aids. To illustrate my own lessons I frequently brought in my own projector; I put up my own pinboard on the back wall of the classroom; I persuaded my elderly aunt to make black-out curtains and with small sixth-form groups sometimes had to have lessons in the boiler anteroom. The fabric of many schools was in a dire state.

When the Tories go on about the last Labour government’s failure to fix the roof while the sun was shining, they should remember who had to restore teachers’ morale and fix the “clapped-out” schools, hospitals, roads, railways and Tubes after 1997. Sadly, it’s all gradually coming back.

Neil Kobish

Barnet, Hertfordshire

It just doesn’t make sense. Why would a Conservative Government appear to be so hostile towards NHS doctors? Actually it makes perfect sense. Briefly pop your Conservative MP hat on (even if it doesn’t fit). Your primary goal is the economy. The UK’s debt stands at over £1.3trn and the NHS consumes £116bn a year. There’s sadly only one possible conclusion: put a stop to the NHS.

But we Tories mustn’t be held responsible for ending the party. We’ll get the doctors themselves to do the job for us. Genius! Let’s make their lives so unpleasant they’ll beg to give up.

We don’t really want a seven-day routine NHS – we can’t afford the existing five day version. But, if we force the issue, doctors will become so disenchanted they’ll capitulate.

Whilst the junior doctors have given their plight a high profile, GPs have not been so effective. It is general practice, not NHS hospital care, which is on the brink of collapse. Previously sought-after job vacancies for both trainee and fully qualified doctors are going unfilled all over the country. Practices are closing.

Ultimately there has to be a private, insurance-based health system. It all makes perfect sense.

Dr Nigel Price (GP)

Bournemouth

Violence against hunt monitors

As a hunt monitor who regularly experiences bullying and harassment by hunt supporters and members, I am shocked but not surprised by the reported attack on the two League Against Cruel Sports monitors at the Belvoir Hunt (“Someone will be killed, warn hunt monitors after attack”, 15 March)

With the Prime Minister and government ministers passively encouraging this shocking situation by their deplorable support of live-quarry hunting, the monitors have been made increasingly vulnerable.

If hunts were not continually and with impunity hunting foxes down, the monitors could heave a huge sigh of relief and no longer have to put themselves into such a dangerous situation in order to do the police’s job for them – only to be repeatedly let down by the police when we turn to them for help over hunt harassment and violence.

Penny Little

Great Haseley, Oxfordshire

No place in Europe for oppressors of Kurds

While sympathising with innocent people caught up in the car bombing in Ankara, let us not forget that this latest round of violence in Turkey is a direct result of the Turks’ brutal treatment of their own Kurdish minority and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s attempt to use the Kurdish question to solidify his own power.

The West should send a clear message to the Turks that their mistreatment of the Kurds will no longer be tolerated. A country that murders its own people has no place in Nato or the EU.

Andrew Brown

Derby

When Muslims choose gender segregation

Umaar Kazmi (letter, 14 March) is tilting at windmills. No one suggests that conservative Muslims should be forced to sit together against their will. If men and women choose to sit separately in a public place, no one will seek to prevent this. The objection is against imposition of gender segregation on those who would not choose it.

To impose segregation is unacceptable in a secular democracy. I lived for two years in a Muslim nation (the UAE); Christians were permitted to follow their religion in private but expected, when in public, to respect the norms of their host country. This was considered perfectly reasonable and was complied with by members of the substantial expat community.

Muslims, and members of other conservative religious groups, are welcome to live in Britain and, within their own community, to observe customs such as men and women not mingling socially. It is not acceptable to attempt to impose those practices on other people in a public forum.

Ken Campbell

Kettering

Killed by a barrage of body-images

It is ludicrous to reduce anorexia to narcissism, as Joan Bakewell was accused of doing, when science doesn’t support that view. But the barrage of “beach body ready” images is bound to make some younger women insecure. It’s usually younger women who are affected by anorexia and it kills more people than all the other mental illnesses.

Stefan Wickham

Oxted, Surrey

Etiquette at the greasy spoon

Barbara MacArthur (letter, 14 March) says she overheard a student ordering breakfast: “I want three eggs.” Mark Redhead (letter, 15 March) believes one of today’s students would have said: “Can I get three eggs?” He is still not quite there. It is: “Can I get like three eggs?”

Geoff Baguley

Wellingborough