Letters: Governments should be promoting marriage, not discouraging it for the sake of equality

Look closer to home

Sir: In your interview with Boris Johnson (‘Austerity was not the way forward’, 30 November) he attributes the EU referendum result to ‘regional inequality… parts of the UK were simply being ignored… leaving people behind’. Yet he says his remedy for this is ‘infrastructure and education and technology’.

In other words, people voted Leave for reasons that had nothing to do with the EU: they were ‘left behind’ because of the austerity policies of the British government. The remedy he identifies is also entirely within the power of our own government.
David Woodhead
Leatherhead, Surrey

Brexit without sovereignty

Sir: Your leading article ‘Out and into the world’ (30 November) made an omission when discussing Britain’s potential foreign policy post-Brexit. The Tories’ proposed treaty surrenders Britain’s future ability in taking ‘any action likely to conflict with or impede EU foreign policy’ (Article 129.6). It also commits to ‘refrain from any action… which is likely to be prejudicial’ to EU interests within international organisations such as the UN Security Council or the WTO (Art. 129, 1 and 3).

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Dominic Cummings

Westminster must fall

This means that UK foreign policy will effectively be subjugated to another sovereign government with its own national interests. This will have a huge impact on UK foreign policy. That a future UK government is willing to subjugate our country’s interests in this manner is an abject failure of the will to govern.
David Smith
London W3

In the name of ‘equality’

Sir: Unusually I take a different point of view from Charles Moore (The Spectator’s Notes, 30 November). He thinks women retiring at the same time as men is a good thing for equality between the sexes. This, to my mind, is in the same category as giving men paid paternity leave, and ignores reality. Like many other women, after retirement I was soon helping with grandchildren so that my daughter and daughter-in-law could return to work part-time.