Sir, – I always pay very close attention to the words of John Bruton ("Cameron's lack of positive vision puts Europe at risk", Opinion & Analysis, February 18th). He is usually wise and informed, and his newspaper articles exercises in clarity and commonsense. However, this time he disappoints me.
What Mr Bruton fails to acknowledge is that the issues that concern many people in the UK with regard to the direction and democratic deficit in the EU are issues that concern many other EU citizens. Even in France and Germany, there is a growing sense of alienation from a system that is increasingly viewed as a fantasy project, pushed through by politicians who are viewed only a little more kindly than bankers and estate agents.
Rather than paint the UK as some strange and puzzling anomaly, Mr Bruton should examine carefully why it is that the peoples of the EU have become so rapidly disenchanted with an EU that demands nothing from its citizens; nothing except that they suspend belief and pretend. Pretend that under a modicum of outside pressure, the EU won’t collapse into snivelling collection of self-serving and self-interested nation states. Suspend belief and pretend that the EU can absorb millions of migrants, many of whom have witnessed terrible atrocities that will leave them carrying medical issues and the burden of post-traumatic stress disorder well into the next 50 years.
Mr Bruton makes the point that the UK has a vital interest in the peace and prosperity of Europe and has in the past saved Europe from itself. It has also been a wise and independent voice within the EU, and had we listened a little more attentively, we may have saved ourselves from the disaster of the euro and the worst excesses of our own “boom”.
For those of us who want the EU to succeed, and I do, then we have to start debating and re-engaging with the peoples of Europe and the ideals of the founding fathers.
The EU needs reform. If it is not reformed, it will continue to lose the regard of its own citizens and eventually it will collapse, perhaps as quickly and as unexpectedly as the Soviet Union did in 1989. – Yours, etc,
KEVIN RYAN,
Richmond,
London.