Letters: The pursuit of a European superstate recalls the continent’s dark past

Hitler and Himmler inspecting SS guards
Don't mention the war: Hitler and Himmler inspecting SS guards Credit:  Hulton Archive / Getty

SIR – Boris Johnson is spot on (“Boris: How EU wants a superstate, as Hitler did”, report, May 15).

EU oligarchs are terrified that Britain might adopt its traditional role of standing up to continental tyranny, and sabotage their long-cherished plan to create a European superstate.

They know only too well that British military power has helped extinguish the imperialist dreams of Hitler, Mussolini, Napoleon, Louis XIV and Philip II.

Brussels is fighting to keep Britain on side because it fears that a newly independent Britain, brimming with vigour and patriotism, might help to bring the enfeebled, undemocratic EU structure crashing down.

Stephen Webbe
Molesey, Surrey

 

SIR – Neither Napoleon nor Hitler wanted to unify Europe. Rather they intended to overthrow and rule their European neighbours. Their actions were driven by hostile, territorial expansionist politics and aggressive nationalism. In contrast, the process of European integration is driven by the opposite idea: overcoming the nationalism that caused immeasurable tragedy and disaster across Europe and beyond.

The EU of today has evolved from complex negotiations and agreements between member states.

Whether or not the British people want to play a part in this long-term project is totally up to them, but the decision they make ahead of the June referendum should not be influenced by simplistic, flawed comparisons with Europe’s past.

Regina Erich
Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire

 

SIR – Joseph Brodsky, the Russian poet and essayist, was more explicit than Mr Johnson, in that he correctly identified Germany as the culprit of European domination.

In the New Republic journal in 1992 he wrote: “At long last it dawned on the descendants of Wotan that saddling their neighbours with debt is a more stable and less costly form of occupation than sending in troops.”

Brian Martin
Oxford

 

SIR – Mr Johnson’s attempt to evoke Europe’s brutal past to win the debate on the EU referendum is inaccurate and insulting.

Unlike Hitler, the EU has never attempted to invade, subjugate, torture or annihilate other peoples.

The EU has provided opportunities for millions of Britons to work, study, live, invest and travel in the 27 other member countries. EU membership has helped us to become the world’s fifth-biggest economy, allowing us to shape the world’s largest single market and largest trading bloc.

Where the EU has problems, we should look to address these from within.

Thomas Cole
Warley, Essex

 

SIR – If Mr Johnson’s comparisons are correct, surely we should hang on in there to help avert disaster. An EU with Britain inside it is much less likely to become a hostile force than one which we leave to its own devices.

Roger Brockway
Alfold, Surrey

 

SIR – Mr Johnson’s remarks about the EU and the Third Reich were not at all offensive, but I think he could have chosen a more appropriate comparison.

For a multi-state bureaucratic empire with an undemocratic, sham parliamentary system, a single economic structure, common defence and foreign policies and an encircling trade barrier, we need only look back as far as the Soviet Union.

Maurice Bradbury
Spilsby, Lincolnshire

 

SIR – Is there something in the water at City Hall? Former London mayors seem to have an unusual preoccupation with Hitler.

Stephen Wallis
Billericay, Essex

 

BBC independence

SIR – Janet Daley argues that “a publicly funded BBC cannot complain if we wish to hold it publicly accountable”. She also writes of “the failure of local newspapers in the face of competition from the BBC’s digital local news services”.

First, the BBC is not asking for independence from the public; it wants to retain independence from government meddling.

Secondly, these days, local newspapers are not the robust rural reporters of parish and urban affairs they once were. Most are owned by large publishing chains, with a lot of their pages common to a whole region.

Michael Gorman

Guildford, Surrey

 

Cost of gas

A coal fired plant generating power
Blowing smoke: could cutting emissions faster be more cost-effective? Credit: John Giles/PA

SIR – It is surprising to learn that 15 MPs have called for the Government to choose a weaker target than has been proposed by experts for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

The 57 per cent cut (from 1990 levels) recommended by the independent Committee on Climate Change is based on a robust analysis of the most cost-effective path towards the ultimate goal of reducing emissions by more than 80 per cent by 2050, as part of Britain’s contribution towards helping the world slow down dangerous climate change.

Neither the collective EU target of cutting emissions by 40 per cent by 2030, nor the “effort-sharing” allocation between member states due to be carried out later this year, is based on what is most cost-effective.

Therefore, in reality, the MPs are arguing for Britain to spend more than is sensible and necessary when tackling climate change.

Bob Ward
Policy and Communications Director, Grantham Research Institute
London School of Economics

 

NHS death knell

SIR – The new GP contract, introduced by the Labour government in 2004, was the death knell for the NHS. It took away 24-hour responsibility from GPs, incentivised disease care rather than patient care, reduced patient choice and access to secondary care, and pushed for prescribing to focus on price rather than quality.

To top this off, we can now see that the Quality Outcomes Framework hasn’t worked (“GP 'bribes’ worsened death risks for some conditions, Lancet study finds”).

We need a return to patient-centred, holistic care and better support services that can provide care at home. We also need a reduction in the burden of administration and targets.

I retired early as a GP, because I felt I could not provide the care patients needed when I was tied up chasing targets.

Dr Robert Mitchell
Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire

 

Time to change the law on term-time holidays

SIR – The recent ruling by the High Court, which found in favour of a father who had been fined for taking his daughter out of school for a term-time holiday, is controversial.

Would this parent have taken his child on holiday during term time if he had been paying for her to be educated at a fee-paying school? His attitude towards state education and its teachers is contemptuous. Presumably he expected these teachers to give his daughter catch-up sessions when she returned to the classroom.

My parents were teachers, so we always had family holidays when the schools were closed. My daughter and son-in-law are teachers, so they are now in the same position. All ancillary staff in schools are similarly restricted when it comes to taking family holidays.

The Government must act quickly to alter the law regarding school attendance.

Thomas C Hamilton
Much Hadham, Hertfordshire

 

SIR – When you decide to have children, you take on the responsibility to bring them up to the best of your ability. This includes schooling. You must also be prepared to make sacrifices.

No one has the “right” to have a holiday away, and spending quality time with the family does not need to involve intercontinental travel.

Disruption caused by absences affects the whole class, as well as the teachers. Imagine the chaos if all 30 or so children in a class went on holiday at different times during the year.

A R du Feu
St Martin, Jersey

 

The Granite City is all at sea without oil or fishing

A technician at the oilfield technology company Plexus, in Aberdeen 
Changing fortunes: a technician at oilfield technology company Plexus, in Aberdeen  Credit: ANDY BUCHANAN/AFP / Getty 

SIR – Jillian Ambrose writes about the economic hardship currently facing many in Aberdeen because of the slump in oil prices (“Broken by oil, the once-tough Granite City”).

In the Fifties, Aberdeen was one of Britain’s main fishing ports. It was a lovely, friendly and affluent city.

Britain’s once proud fishing industry has been diminished by our membership of the EU. Aberdeen is just one of many Scottish towns and cities whose connection with fishing has since all but disappeared.

Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the SNP, would do well to reflect on this, given her strong pro-EU position.

John Kellie
Pyrford, Surrey

 

SIR – The estimate that there are still 20 billion barrels of oil to be recovered in the North Sea seems optimistic. BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy (2015) gives the proved UK oil reserves as three billion barrels.

The reality is that Britain’s North Sea assets are running out.

John Busby
Lawshall, Suffolk

 

Crowning glory

SIR – There has been much to enjoy and admire in The Hollow Crown, the BBC’s condensed version of Shakespeare’s history plays. But why does the crown itself, which is the focus of one great scene in Henry IV, have to be such a tawdry, ahistorical object?

This symbol of power and wealth, in medieval and later times, was always made of gold. Of course we can’t expect the BBC props department to stretch to that, but it could have had the tarnished base metal either gold-plated or gilt-lacquered.

If the same team were to produce The Merchant of Venice, would Portia, in the casket scene, have to choose between lead, silver and brass?

David Kenrick
London SW10

 

Milking it

SIR – When my family lived in the Netherlands in the mid-Seventies, the milkman (Letters, May 15) didn’t just deliver milk, but also, on request, crates of beer for my father.

Jeremy Burton
Wokingham, Berkshire

 

End of the line

SIR – Oh! Mister Porter,

I caught the HS2,

I wanted to go to Manchester,

But it only went to Crewe.

Andy Band
Bristol

 

Spud nut

SIR – You report that eating several helpings of potatoes a week could be bad for your health. I am 83 and I have eaten potatoes all my life. In fact, I used to eat so many that it earned me the nickname Potato Pete.

My husband and I are giving up our council allotment after 51 years, which, sadly, means no more home-grown spuds.

V A Heath
Ashford, Middlesex

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