Letters | 22 June 2016

European identity

Sir: Alexander Chancellor (Long life, 18 June) echoes the widely accepted view of the European Union as a ‘bulwark against the nationalism that is rising again’. The European project was, of course, conceived as a means of averting the catastrophes that nationalism wreaked upon Europe during the 20th century.

However, in practice the EU has stoked nationalism within its constituent member states. As a top-down, elite-driven process, EU integration has crucially failed to mobilise the masses in favour of a common European identity that transcends national allegiances. Combine this with a simultaneous erosion of state sovereignty and the EU’s democratic deficit, and it is not difficult to understand why nationalist sentiment has again resurfaced.

The rise of Greece’s far-right, hard Eurosceptic Golden Dawn has been catalysed by the punishing measures imposed upon Greece by eurozone officials. Even in Britain, political resistance to European integration has proven instrumental in generating the ideological foundations for contemporary English nationalism. Perhaps this should be borne in mind as the EU continues its relentless drive towards ‘ever-closer union’.
Camille Mulcaire

Perivale, Middlesex

If you leave, we leave

Sir: I recently conducted a straw poll of friends who, like me, voted No to Scottish independence in 2014. All were educated and intelligent people. None were nature’s Scottish nationalists. All but one would change their vote to Yes in the event of Brexit — as would I (and rest assured, things have come to a pretty pass when I support Scottish independence). They simply would not want to live in what they regarded as an isolationist and hard-right country. It is equally plausible that a majority in Northern Ireland would in those circumstances favour joining the Republic. Is it not bleakly ironic that those who wave the Union Jack most ardently, yourselves included, may well be responsible for the destruction of Britain?
Alex O’Brien

Glasgow

Detective work

Sir: I was surprised to read in Andrew Marr’s diary (18 June) his claim that Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie were responsible for inventing the modern detective story.