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Uncertain future

DAVID Collins reiterates his view that the EU has a “strangulation hold” over Great Britain, (Bunch of wimps, Swindon Advertiser, September 25), without accepting that we have been part of the EU rule-making process for almost half a century and could have become more engaged if Westminster had chosen to do so instead of pandering to the likes of the Daily Mail.

He goes on to remind us of our military triumphs in the Second World War but entirely omits the contributions made by Australia, New Zealand, Canada and others.

And more especially by Russia, which suffered almost as many lives lost as the entire population of Britain in 1939.

I can understand why, against his background, Russia now gets “touchy” when we chose to fly combat aircraft provocatively close to its borders as “part of NATO exercises”.

With the future as uncertain as it now seems, I would prefer that we remained part of a big block instead of casting adrift as the “Little England” I fear we shall become.

Don Reeve, Horder Mews, Old Town

Workers under attack

WE are currently facing many attacks on working people which are winding back gains won in the struggle against Britain’s bosses and their state.

We work harder for worse pay with worse pensions when work is done.

Privatisation and cuts mean the rich have got much richer while public services crumble and the NHS is squeezed.

Poverty continues to increase.

Politicians and the media continually attempt to divert attention from real issues, blaming immigrants for problems they have nothing to do with causing.

In this situation many who rightly oppose these attacks have mistakenly come to see some defence against them in the EU.

This even though the pro-business (profit first) rules of the EU have helped to facilitate some of those very attacks across Europe, (attacks backed, by the way, by right-wing Brexiteers).

Calling for another referendum on the issue is a mistake and would divide people on the worst possible terrain.

I understand the frustration of those calling for another vote given mainstream “Brexit” sentiment, eg the latest letter from HG Smith repeats, ludicrously: “We have survived for centuries on our own.”

The “we” is in reality, a “a ragbag of migrants, reflecting thousands of years of continuity and change”, as DNA evidence and history make clear.

He closes: “We may as well burn the Domesday book and go back to the feudal system.”

He has obviously heard of those things but has no clue what they are; the sentence is devoid of sense.

He holds strong opinions completely uninfluenced by reality.

Peter Smith, Woodside Avenue, Swindon