Bishop should not copy PM

SIR – With great respect, I wish the Right Rev Dr. John Inge ought to take more care not to appear a David Cameron look-alike when he tells voters they face the “most significant decision of our generation”.

In a lengthy piece which received widespread coverage in the media, he says a Brexit would (not might) make the world “much more dangerous”. He also co-signed a letter to the Observer signed by a host of church leaders around Britain “pleading” with people to stay in.

He will next take part in a Q&A session in Malvern with Harriet Baldwin MP and former Labour Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

He warns that “the decision is significant not only for this country but for the rest of Europe and the world. Mrs. Baldwin is “delighted” that Bishop John will take part: “I want to make sure that people are informed of the ‘facts’ before they go into the ballot box.” Quite so.

In Bishop John’s first-person piece he said a vote to quit “could well precipitate the beginning of the break-up of the EU. It’s because of the EU that it’s now unthinkable that the countries of Europe which fought each other so fiercely a couple of generations ago, should now go to war with one another”.

Bishop John’s intervention comes after more polls appear to show voters still virtually neck-a-neck ahead of June 23.

I very much regret that he has agreed to resort to Mr. Cameron’s Third World War scare tactic; many Tories were disgusted by this. Does he not consider that NATO is the most likely organisation to safeguard peace in Europe and elsewhere?

Certainly an EU Army would not achieve this. Perhaps we might all pray that terrorist activity can be minimised in part by controlling borders.

Wendy Hands

Upton-Upon-Severn

Referendum a Tory fight

SIR – There are a number of good lessons about the EU Referendum in Andrew Brown’s letter of 13.6.16, although, clearly, not the ones intended.

We can agree, of course, that David Cameron should not have called a referendum which is, at heart, not about Europe but about his management of the Tory Party; also that six years of completely unnecessary Tory-imposed austerity have caused serious financial and social stress to millions of people. However, none of this argues sensibly that we should, as it were, give him a kicking, by voting to leave.

Where there must be disagreement is when Mr Brown extols the “centuries” during which we did not have an EU. For good or bad, the world has changed, and we need to adapt intelligently to those changes. It is beyond question, moreover, that, during our EU years, we and other countries have enjoyed, overall, unprecedented long-term prosperity and freedom from war which blighted those previous “centuries”. And yet again, it seems that a reminder is needed about non-EU countries doing “very nicely”. They only achieve this by agreeing to the rules of the EU club (including financial contribution and free movement of people) without having any say in the formulation of those rules.

In any case, net non-EU immigration is significantly higher than that from the EU, and it simply will not do to adopt the tactic of the bad guy through the ages and blame all our (often self-inflicted) woes on immigration by folk from foreign parts. One further thought: what about our migration to their lands?

We are well down a very slippery slope.

David Barlow

Worcester

Thatcher put UK in Europe

SIR – Readers who grumble about the part played by British leaders in the European project seem to have forgotten about Margaret Thatcher. She is remembered for her anti-Europe speeches from 1988 but before that she had drawn us more deeply into Europe than any other leader through the Single European Act 1985, her support for free trade and a common defence policy.

Although he signed Britain into Europe, Edward Heath did not initiate our involvement. He was a very long way from the start of the process. The origins lie with the premiership of Harold Macmillan, the end of Empire, concerns over the economy, and our relationships with the US.

Derek Fearnside

Worcester

Looking to US for guidance

SIR – Whilst reading the many obtuse comments in the regard of the imminent national referendum and should we stay or should we leave the EU, I sought the words of Thomas Jefferson, who gave the draft to the ‘Declaration of Independence’ for the USA.

Attributed to Thomas Jefferson but not confirmed, is the following: “A government big enough to give you everything you need is a government big enough to take everything you have.”

History has shown us that the larger the government grows so your liberty diminishes!

John W Pedley

Worcester

Brexit will not return past

SIR – Rule Britannia? Our history is of an island nation reaching out rather than being introspective and prepared to define the agenda as well as make pragmatic alliances.

And even as late as the 1970s, long after our global domination had passed, we, when voting to join the EEC, were in cold war mode nervously watching the iron curtain along with many others with a twitchy finger on the big red button.

In that pre-Eurozone world there were numerous homely and reassuring symbols of our national identity such as red phone boxes in the shadow of churches above which the flag of St George loyally fluttered like a comfort blanket against the skies, picture postcard village post offices, few non-Brits outside the major cities and international travel was a complex adventure rather than a mega-second deal arranged by smartphone, and borders crossed with a nodding glance at the wine coloured passport.

But as rosy a glow as the past suggests, Brexit will not return the UK to being anything other than a film set of aspects of its own past – many airbrushed with nostalgia.

It won’t empty it of economic migrants nor stem large numbers coming annually and is no ‘quick fix’ for any challenges. Anyone who thinks the housing crisis will be solved or the demographic time bomb defused can think twice. Students will remain up to their neck in debts, as will the nation.

Ironically, old enmities with the continent will re-emerge and if the EU were to stagger and fall as a result of others following our example then we can look forward to the seething resentment of our neighbours for any adverse consequences.

It might be the eventual fate for the troubled EU anyway, but hastening that at a time of global menaces like Isis and with Russia turning the political thermostat back down to minimum, is it sensible or sane to allow others to profit from a fragmented Europe and its political and economic upheaval?

Andrew Brown

Worcester

We are losing our identity

SIR – Immigration has formed part of our national history. Blocks of nations have eventually fragmented.

Whether this country stays or leaves the EU, we shall face financial and other difficulties. How will the government finance all the new hospitals, schools, prisons and other institutions that will be needed for the rapidly, uncontrolled, growing population? If we continue in the EU, I feel this country will gradually lose it’s identity and viability, in which case we shall be unable to adequately look after our present wave of immigrants as we should wish.

In my younger days, living through a war was very hard. Our wonderful Armed Forces fought and retained our sovereignty and freedom. I shall show them my loyalty and gratitude by voting to leave the EU. ‘Lest we forget’.

A Yelan

Worcester

BBC lacking in impartiality

SIR – On a recent television programme, a BBC executive stressed that it was important for the BBC to give fair and impartial coverage of the debate concerning the EU referendum. This has turned out to be a joke. The BBC should be renamed the EBC.

The corporation is very clever and subtle in the way it shows interviews and discussion groups. All the ‘big guns’ and ex-politicians are regularly wheeled out and given plenty of air time and the Brexit viewpoint is usually briefer and low key. This is the BBC’s ‘balanced and fair reporting’ – when it is obvious which part of the fence they are on. I hope the discerning public will see through this charade.

H D Liddington

Droitwich