Sir, – When a country such as Britain leaves the EU, the situation it puts itself into can be likened to a man trying to get out of quicksand. The more effort that such a man makes in extracting himself from the quicksand, the more he sinks back down into it. Likewise, as Britain leaves the European Union at the end of January next year this proud independent nation is going to find itself not more free but instead more completely subservient to the rules of the EU.
Then too the eventual setting up of a totally new economic treaty between Britain and the EU could become such a long process that it may unfortunately for all concerned run on much longer than the end of 2020 despite the best efforts of the British prime minister Boris Johnson.
The best advice that can be given to someone stuck in quicksand is to stay quiet and not move about too much. So Britain, after nearly 50 years of forging stronger and equal economic and social ties with all the other EU states, should have accepted the position it had got itself into.
But Britain in making so many large waves all around itself could soon become economically and politically weaker than ever before – rather than stronger. – Yours, etc,
SEAN O’BRIEN,
Kilrush, Co Clare.
Sir, – Tony Blair won a landslide, while Jeremy Corbyn got skewered, so obviously Blairism is right and Corbynism is wrong, is the basic premise of Ian Dunt (“British democracy needs a strong Labour leader”, Opinion, December 18th). His solution flowing from this is that the British Labour Party should be led by Jess Phillips or perhaps Lisa Nandy.
It is certainly true that Jeremy Corbyn failed to inspire in the 2019 election in the way that he did in 2017. And his vacillation over Brexit made him look weak, leaving great uncertainty over the direction of a government led by him. Yet it is impossible to see how a leader with a clear position on Brexit would not also have massively divided the English electorate, with those who usually or traditionally support Labour completely split over Brexit.
But Ian Dunt ignores one specific element of Labour’s woes – the international dimension.
Social democracy is in crisis across the world and especially in Europe.
Ireland’s Labour Party was on 6 per cent in opinion polling last month. More significantly, the once mighty German Social Democrat Party is now on 15 per cent in polling. France’s Socialist candidate gained 6 per cent of the first round vote in the 2017 presidential election (having won the previous presidential election). The left is also in crisis in Italy, in difficulty though in power on a caretaker basis in Spain, with Portugal providing one of the few optimistic signs.
What we learn from this is that there is little confidence among electorates that social democracy can address the problems of stagnant real wages after the global financial crisis, or the competitive pressures arising from weakly regulated neo-liberal globalisation. Blair’s support for the Iraq war was another factor in Britain – while Clinton’s drive for deregulated financial markets must bear significant responsibility for the global recession.
None of this adds up to a solution for the social democratic crisis. But what we don’t need are simplistic solutions and an absence of real analysis from Ian Dunt or anyone else. – Yours, etc,
PAUL GOSLING
Derry.