Letters Special: Upcoming generations robbed by an insular view of the world

For more than 20 years our school received thousands of pounds in grants as part of the EU Comenius programme. We won European Curriculum awards and the school community of pupils, parents and staff enjoyed a range of truly inspirational experiences. This was part of our vision for International Education and Global Citizenship.

Our partner schools were in Norway, Finland, Italy, Poland and France and, every year, dozens of pupils attended student seminars in places including Helsinki, Stavanger, Warsaw, Cuneo and Lockerbie. Our teachers were involved in innovative and challenging annual staff development and the families in partner countries embraced home stays to create mutual understanding and empathy.

Partnership projects included protecting the environment, supporting minority groups, equality and fairness and, paradoxically, understanding EU politics’. Many of our students progressed to higher education and, with their confidence and enthusiasm for Europe consolidated, they embarked on EU Erasmus programmes and EU supported Research projects. They felt entitled to these opportunities; they were European citizens.

Brexit has potentially destroyed these opportunities for educational centres throughout Scotland. There will be no easy involvement with European countries and very little financial support for projects, especially in an era of prolonged austerity.

I have no confidence that a UK with its insular, inward and nostalgic view of the world, outwith the EU, will give our upcoming generations the opportunities afforded to them in the last four decades.

Theresa May, David Mundell, Ruth Davidson, and Kezia Dugdale do not speak for me and the 62 per cent of the Scottish electorate who voted Remain. Partisan views should not deprive the people of Scotland of their democratic rights. Equally, our younger generations deserve the opportunities available within the EU.

Gordon Ferrie,

3 Craigbrae Court,

Straiton.

THE Government that manages our risk by making us ?belt up and not use mobiles while driving is risking our futures on the unknowns of Brexit for political ideology. But the ironies do not stop there. The First Minister claims Brexit is a “reckless gamble”. With “turbocharged austerity” a risk for an independent Scotland, reckless gambling appears to be her strategy.

In earlier times our, possibly more boring, politicians, usually with life experiences from a career before politics, reacted to “events, dear boy”. Our new career politicians – Tony Blair and his awful war, David Cameron undermining our parliamentary democracy with his referendums and Nicola Sturgeon’s obsession with independence – suffer from delusions of grandeurwho appear to disregard the value of stability for the rest of us as they throw their arrogant dice.

One day we will look back on these febrile times as “Events that cost us dear, dear boy.”

John Dunlop,

9 Birnam Crescent,

Glasgow.

IAIN Macwhirter’s article (“Be very afraid: The Brexit nightmare is truly upon us”, Herald March 30) reflects precisely what many of us are feeling today: frustration, disbelief and anger. It beggars belief that Theresa May and her “little Englander” supporters in the Tory Party should be revelling in this moment, which must surely condemn the UK (including Scotland against its expressed will) to several decades of poorer economic and social progress.

It is not people like me, already comfortably retired and most of us unlikely to be around for the next 20 or 30 years, who will suffer the most economic hardship and reduced living standards as Britain struggles to regain something like its present economic prosperity and global influence that it has stupidly thrown away.

It is today’s teenagers and those in their 20s and 30s who, over the next few decades, will bear the brunt of this act of crass stupidity and arrogant insularity; and all of this just to keep out European nationals who have helped keep our NHS, social services and public transport going for the past 40 years

Unfortunately the people of Scotland, who had the good sense to reject EU withdrawal by a clear majority, will also have to suffer the consequences of what will inevitably be a hard Brexit from the world’s biggest free trade market, while those we did not even vote for struggle to reach some kind of advantageous trading arrangements with many other countries, which we already enjoyed as a member of the EU.

As Iain Macwhirter says, the generations following us will spend the next 40 years living with the consequences of this incoherent and economically irrational act of national self-harm.

Iain AD Mann, 7 Kelvin Court, Glasgow.

MANY genuinely believe that triggering Article 50 is the beginning of the end for the UK. Highlighting, too, the 60 years of European peace brought about mainly by EU integration, as The Herald has also done, is also relevant as isolation leaves us vulnerable in current troubled times.

Iain Macwhirter accurately and neatly sums up the situation and the outlook for the future. What a tragedy it is that the Prime Minister, her arrogant and Anglocentric Brexit companions, and Leave voters, do not have the good sense to see the true position emerging after all the lies and distortions fed to them during the referendum.

Daunting, too, is the apparent time and focus that will be required by Westminster when other domestic matters need urgent attention.

Nigel Dewar Gibb,

15 Kirklee Road, Glasgow.

THE EU will only grant the UK access to the European single market if it in return guarantees the basic freedoms, including the free movement of persons, to all EU-citizens.

Without access to the European single market, the UK would have to trade with the EU on the basis of the rules of the World Trade Organization. This would be a disaster. The Treasury has predicted a 7.5 per cent decline in the gross domestic product and a loss of £45 billion in fiscal revenue.

Some Brexit advocates will probably brand these consequences as a punishment by the EU. Whoever thinks that this is a punishment, that you cannot have rights without duties, is beyond help.

Michael Pfeiffer,

Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Str 16,

73765 Neuhausen auf den Fildern,

Germany.

NICE to see Brexit getting off to a good start with Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande vetoing any trade deal until the “divorce settlement” is agreed (“EU chiefs give early warning of tough talks”, The Herald, March 30). I suppose we can now expect Theresa May to order the bricking up of the Channel Tunnel and the renaming of Brussels sprouts as freedom mini-cabbages. So everything going according to plan, then?

Dave Stewart,

6 Blairatholl Avenue, Glasgow.

YOUR front-page headline (“The beginning of the end”) could suggest something cataclysmic ahead.

As the EU has five, unelected presidents, perhaps a more accurate headline may have been “The beginning of democracy”.

James Miller,

101 Marlborough Avenue, Glasgow.

I AM clearly naive. I had assumed that someone had a plan as to how Scotland might leave the UK and that there was a similar plan for the UK to leave the EU. At least the Scottish Government had a plan for leaving the UK whereas Ukip and the Conservative Party appear to have no such plans.

I took the view that the proposals for Scotland leaving the UK were defective and I voted against leaving the Union. When it came to the vote on leaving the EU there were no proposals whatsoever for leaving and I had no hesitation in voting against leaving the EU.

In the first referendum the majority saw sense and Scotland remains as part of the UK, whereas in the second the UK electorate voted Leave without any idea as to the conditions on which they were leaving.

My faith in politics will be restored if the Liberal Democrats can reassure me that the plans drawn up by William Ewart Gladstone for Scottish Home Rule have been regularly updated and can be implemented with immediate effect.

I would also hope that Sinn Fein has a clear plan for securing Irish independence. If these two parties have no robust proposals for a federal UK state and Irish independence then there is no hope for the UK.

If Northern Ireland should decide to leave the UK it would be logical for Scotland to leave the UK at the same time. Unfortunately I fear that logic no longer seems to play a part in the important decisions made by the electorate.

Sandy Gemmill,

40 Warriston Gardens, Edinburgh.

IT is reasonable that the Scottish people should be given the opportunity to decide whether they wish to remain in the UK. But it is ridiculous to suggest holding a referendum before we know what that UK option will look like. It is also ridiculous to hold this poll before it is clear what the Leave option would mean.

Nicola Sturgeon should investigate forming a union of economic and cultural equals with Ireland, in which Scotland would be a semi-autonomous self-governing country within a federation.

The counties’ industries are complementary; their combined financial sectors would benefit from the strength of a union; and Ireland is in the EU so there would be no prolonged application process. If the Northern Irish wished to join in too, issues with a hard border and the peace process would be solved.

Unwelcome as it is, we need this second Scottish referendum, with clear choices on both sides, to make a decision beyond doubt and challenge.

Jamie Dobson,

78 Clober Road, Milngavie.