Opinion
Letter: Stop treating us Brexiteers as Little Englanders
Pro-Brexit demonstration in London. Photograph: NurPhoto. - Credit: SIPA USA/PA Images
A Brexiteer writes to The New European with a request...
I, who voted Leave, read TNE avidly every week, not as Alastair Campbell said to 'know thine enemy' but rather because your other cultural and political articles are generally excellent and reflective of the broad cultural bond we have with Europe, and long may these continue.
Can I though express my dismay at the increasing polarisation of the Brexit debate on both sides of the ever-increasing divide. I don't think anybody voted for this level of discord, which to a certain extent is reflected in your editorial pages.
Take just one example – immigration. This seems to position xenophobic racist Little Englanders on the one side against enlightened metropolitan liberals who welcome a multi-racial society and hence accept unlimited immigration. In actual fact I don't recognise either of these stances.
What I and many of my colleagues (middle-class, middle-aged, multi-racial) here in Birmingham voted for was just to feel that the country had enough control of immigration to match the net numbers coming in to the needs of the economy and to the ability of our social infrastructure to support them. I would guess that net inflow of 350,000 per annum is too high and that tens of thousands is too low, so the right number may be in the region of 150,000 to 200,000 a year.
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Who knows – but surely worth a mature debate?
John Howard
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