In answer to your front-page report “Chaos looms for EU citizens” (News, last week), the three million EU citizens in this country are concerned not only whether their right to stay will eventually be guaranteed, but also how it would be administered. Amber Rudd, in her reply to Hilary Benn, had implied that new IDs needed to be issued, and proposed regulations for access to the NHS probably makes this inevitable.
It is apparent that local authorities are already in the best position to arrange the registration of – and issue appropriate IDs to – local EU residents as they are already responsible for local registers of births, deaths and marriages, the electoral roll and social service and school records. Also, they have a less officious and more inclusive work ethic in comparison with, say, the Home Office, which tends to seek to exclude and has been responsible for a large number of much-publicised blunders recently in relation to EU citizens.
It is recognised that councils are currently under enormous budgeting pressures as their central government grants are reduced and they may be reluctant to take on new tasks, but the administrative cost of registering EU citizens could be covered from a central ring-fenced fund.
It remains vital to perform this task quickly and efficiently, as Poles and other EU citizens have come here in good faith and have contributed considerably to the UK economy and to the social and cultural fabric of this nation. There are, for instance, 187,000 Polish children here who see themselves as UK citizens and they should be saved from the trauma of being sent to Poland or another EU country because their parents feel concerned about their future in a post-Brexit UK.
Wiktor Moszczynski
Convener, A Fair Deal for Poles in the UK
London
The trouble with referendums
Ed Vulliamy is quite right (“I was wrong to defend Corbyn. He has betrayed us over Brexit”, Comment, last week), and, much more surprisingly, so is Tony Blair. At last, someone has the courage to say what rubbish it is to chant “the people have spoken”.
What happened last June was a classic instance of a type of non-violent coup d’état. A bunch of extreme right-wing demagogues were appeased by mainstream politicians, and the resulting referendum was won by the demagogues. This is historically typical. Referendums have always been a tool of demagogues.
What an impoverished conception it is that reduces “democracy” to the mere occurrence of voting. Democratic institutions involve a lot more than the ballot box: they involve checks and balances and, in particular, the rational and informed weighing of factual evidence – which means by democratically elected representatives. No one could describe the 2016 referendum campaign as a rational weighing of evidence. Like most referendums, it served chiefly as a Rorschach blot on to which people could project whatever they felt discontented about.
An acute problem posed by the referendum and the silencing of all opposition to its outcome is the precedent it sets for government by popular acclaim, thus providing an opportunity for the right-wing ideologues to exploit. To safeguard that, we need a written constitution, for which Anthony Barnett and Charter 88 have been campaigning fruitlessly for three decades. Under such a constitution, referendums should be explicitly forbidden, as they have been in post-war Germany – for very good historical reasons.
Stephen Mennell
(Professor Emeritus) Dublin
A better business rate formula
One of the key problems with the current basis for business rates (“Small shops recoil in the face of rates that will more than double”, Business, last week), is that the valuations are based on rental values. Thus a business that improves its premises and contributes towards the success of the area increases the rental value and therefore brings more expense, whereas a business that neglects its premises and is a factor in the decline of the area decreases its costs. It is just the opposite of what should be the case.
If rates were based on land values according to a site’s maximum permitted development, it has a much more stable foundation, with the incentive being to make the best use of the site.
Michael Meadowcroft
Leeds
The cold logic of football
“‘Wenger out’ crowd should look at United” ran the headline on Daniel Taylor’s piece (Sport, last week). He obviously heard the same school assembly as I did. “Stop moaning if you’ve got a cold, the person next to you has got pneumonia.” Unlike him, I didn’t, and don’t, believe it. I’ve still got a cold and I still feel miserable about it, irrespective of anyone suffering more.
Paul Fowler
Nuneaton, Warwickshire
Trump’s fabulous performance
You referred to Sebastian Gorka’s interview on BBC’s Newsnight, on which he described Donald Trump’s press conference performance as “fabulous” (All the president’s men, In Focus, last week). I have no time for Trump and his cheerleaders but I think Gorka makes a valid point, bearing in mind that the dictionary definition of “fabulous” is “having no basis in reality; mythical”. Seems about right to me.
Mike Pender
Cardiff
