Sir, – Only a month ago, Brigid Laffan called, in this newspaper, for the abandonment of both Irish neutrality and low corporation tax to suit her federalist agenda, and now she is swooping down again to attack former ambassador Ray Bassett's proposal for Ireland to consider leaving the EU (News, July 3rd).
Mr Bassett is the only “establishment” figure to stick his head above the parapet and publicly utter the frankly unthinkable, and now the protectors of the project are rushing to close him down and smother any debate.
“Irexit” is the only intuitive solution to so many of the problems thrown up by Brexit, yet our supine Europhile “leaders”, Leo Varadkar included, will not countenance any discussion or debate of “the solution that dare not speak its name”.
It is time to put aside the “fake news” Eurobarometer polls, and to give the Irish people the only poll that really matters, a referendum on leaving the EU. – Yours, etc,
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AVA HENDON,
Woodstown,
Co Waterford.
Sir, – In his analysis of the EU crisis ("The EU is not undemocratic, it is just misunderstood", July 5th), Patrick Smyth deals satisfactorily with the negative view that the European Commission is an "unelected – that's the whole point – quasi-civil service", though I don't quite see why the "quasi" is necessary. Sadly, however, he doesn't shoot down the canard that usually follows – that its officials are faceless.
I was a “faceless Eurocrat” for 25 years. I felt the charge of facelessness so keenly that I had difficulty shaving every morning.
However, I dealt with the problem pragmatically, as civil servants do.
That is why I have a beard ! – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL DRURY,
Brussels.
A chara, – Natasha Browne (July 4th) argues that the UK should accept Ireland's independence. This is an admirable but rather naive position.
The sad truth is that political independence is predicated on financial independence. I do not want to leave the European Union, but if Europe does not compensate us for the cost of the UK’s departure, then we will have to consider all our options. – Is mise,
ART Ó LAOGHAIRE,
Bray,
Co Wicklow.
Sir, – I enjoyed Patrick Smyth’s piece on the EU and democracy.
Since many EU citizens neither know nor care what their MEPs actually do, whether they do it well or not, or, in some cases, who they are, an actual if not theoretical democratic deficit is inevitable. This is particularly so since the central instrument of democracy, namely a periodic opportunity for direct electoral revenge on those we hold responsible, is absent.
In Ireland we make the best of it by using European Parliament elections as a proxy to inflict pain for national failings but our hearts aren’t really in it.
In truth, if EU citizens were told they could keep only one of the European Parliament or the Eurovision Song Contest, I am not sure which would survive. There is in the case of the latter, at least, an argument for reforming the voting arrangements. – Yours, etc,
KEVIN O’SULLIVAN,
Phibsborough,
Dublin 7.