Unencumbered
Sir: Matthew Parris’s bizarre reference (‘Unforgiven’, 10 December) to the UK economy as merely ‘medium-sized’ is a classic instance of Remainers’ tendency to pass Britain off expediently as a vulnerable country on the margins of Europe, which couldn’t survive without our EU umbilical cord. The UK is actually the fifth or sixth largest of the world’s nearly 200 national economies. If we are only medium-sized, how can all the world’s ‘even smaller’ economies — such as India, Canada, South Korea or Australia — possibly hack it as independent sovereign states outside any supranational governance bloc like the EU? How have they managed so far?
Mr Parris does at least promise that if in seven years’ time our economy is growing faster than our European partners, he will admit that he was wrong. As it happens, even since the referendum it has been.
In any event, for those who voted to leave there are more important things than our medium-term economic performance. Britain has been beholden to the EU’s governing elite for over 40 years. It may take a while to unencumber ourselves fully. But when we do, the benefits will be as much sociopolitical and cultural as economic. It seems the British psyche has been infantilised by our long dependence on Nanny Brussels. It is time we grew up.
Nigel Henson
Farningham, Kent
Not anti-Europe
Sir: In discussions of Brexit, I wish Matthew Parris and other Remainers would not use ‘Europe’ when they mean ‘the European Union’. Being against the latter is not the same as being anti-European. I have lived for 29 years in Switzerland, which has always been part of Europe. Switzerland is not in the EU, and Swiss referendums show that the EU is not trusted by a majority of voters.
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