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Mainstream Brexit views are ‘fuelled by sheer fantasy’

There are good reasons for opposing membership of the European Union and I am no fan.

But David Collins’ letters to the Adver (eg SA, May 6) again demonstrate vividly that the main stream Brexit position is fuelled by sheer fantasy - like for instance the view that the low-waged economic basket case that Britain was before joining the common market was a thriving success.

He writes: “We … can do better by going alone.”

Several Adver readers believe in a mythical history of Britain which stretches back over centuries of heroic isolation and continually trumpet how proud they are of it. It is drivel.

There is no period in the history of people on these islands through which there were not multiple and varied connections, economic, cultural and social, with the rest of the world.

One small symbolic example would be the rebuilding of Canterbury Cathedral after a fire in Norman times.

Based on Chartres Cathedral where Muslim glass makers from the Middle East made the glass, as European glass makers lacked the requisite skill. Glass makers were central to the rebuild as were immigrant workers, in all periods, in building the UK.

One far from symbolic example is World War Two where Britain was far from standing alone in the defeat of Hitler.

Mr Collins doesn’t tell us if he is proud of all UK history. So we’ll have to guess about whether he still celebrates the opium wars where the British navy destroyed Chinese towns until China surrendered to Britain’s demand we be entitled to force the deadly narcotic on them.

This was when the British Empire was the world’s biggest drug dealer.

We aren’t told if Mr Collins also celebrates the fact that it was never “great” for working people in Britain; that for instance people were too unfit for military service in the Boer war (poverty not social media over-use).

We do know Mr Collins opposes working people organising collectively to defend living conditions and that he sides with the rich in such struggles.

For him poverty and inequality are fine as long as he can wave his flag over it.

In or out of the EU ordinary people are being told by the rich we have to pay for the crisis and in or out this should remain the main issue.

Peter Smith, Woodside Avenue, Swindon

Rank hypocrisy in the church over nuclear weapons service

An estimated 500 people held a vigil outside Westminster Abbey on May 3 in a protest at a thanksgiving service that was being held inside the abbey.

What was the service for?

It was held to mark 50 years of the Royal Navy having nuclear armed submarines.

The demonstration outside was organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and saw people from all faiths and no faith stage a “die-in” that represented the victims of nuclear war.

Imagine the utter devastation that would occur if these appalling weapons were ever used.

How can the clergy who attended the service, preach love and peace yet support nuclear weapons?

It appears hypocrisy is not only rife in politics, but also in the church as well.

Imagine the billions that is spent on nuclear weapons being spent instead on public services.

How much safer and how much better would our world be for all to live in ?

Martin Webb, Old Town, Swindon