Barack Obama ratchets up tensions in the EU debate

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/24/barack-obama-ratchets-up-tensions-in-the-eu-debate

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“Barack Obama is right that it is common sense to stick together” (Editorial, 23 April) is welcome as a positive statement. But it’s still useful to consider some of the consequences if the leavers get their way and the UK votes to exit the EU. The immediate and ongoing tasks of renegotiating and managing our interactions with the rest of the world would be orders of magnitude larger than the run of government business over the last decades. It would also be essential to maintain cordial and cooperative relationships with other countries, as the UK would be in a weak bargaining position (Obama: Brexit would put UK at ‘back of the queue’ on trade, 23 April).

In these contexts, it is relevant to examine the track records in change management and maintaining good negotiating relations of some of the main proponents of Brexit, who would doubtless be in charge in the event of a leave vote. Michael Gove: a bit of a disaster at education. Chris Grayling: ditto at justice. Boris Johnson: as mayor of London, said to be only interested in vanity projects. Iain Duncan Smith: universal credit at work and pensions running years late, and may deliver as much collateral damage as enhanced service. Fills you with confidence, doesn’t it? Perhaps Eurosceptic Andrew Lansley (health, remember?) could help.Dr Ron FraserSwallowfield, Berkshire

• Ah, the cycles of history… President Obama tells us the focus of the US is on “negotiating with a big bloc”. Not the same words, but exactly the same opinion of President Kennedy in Washington in July 1961 when he told his friend and distant relative Harold Macmillan that “a British decision to join the Six would be welcome”. A few days after his return from Washington, on 31 July 1961, Macmillan announced that Britain would apply for EEC membership, a decision widely seen as a somewhat surprising break with the well-established British postwar policy.

However much of a good thing the EU might be – and I would like to think it is a huge benefit – it is alarming that there has been so much behind-the-scenes manipulation and dishonesty in representing those benefits to the British electorate.Patricia Baker-CassidyOxford

• You quote Boris Johnson’s statement that the United States would “not dream of embroiling itself” in anything similar to the European Union. Excuse me? The US is something similar to the EU. It’s pretty obvious from the name but I’ll explain to Mr Johnson just in case. The US is a union of 50 states which have sovereignty in some areas but which are subject to the federal laws of the union in others. So, for example, California – the world’s seventh largest economy – does indeed embroil itself in something similar to the EU. It has done so for 116 years. Why? Because united we stand, divided we fall.Jane GrantDallington, East Sussex

• Now that the special relationship has been strengthened by the “friendship” between Dave and Barack, can we expect Dave to visit the US and “with the candour of a friend” advise them that they’d be crazy to elect Donald Trump?Rowland WareCottenham, Cambridgeshire

• The leave campaign has been objecting to President Obama giving his view on the EU referendum, or, as they would put it, “telling us how to vote”. No doubt the leavers will express equally strong objection to Marine Le Pen coming over to support their campaign (Le Pen may campaign for Brexit, 21 April). Or, indeed, to Nigel Farage campaigning in the Netherlands during their recent referendum (Voters geared up for poll on EU-Kiev pact, 5 April).Alan PavelinChislehurst, Kent

• It’s remarkable that someone born in the US and with exotic forebears should take it upon himself to lecture the British people about their relationship with Europe. So why does Boris Johnson keep doing it?Kevin O’SullivanLetterkenny, County Donegal, Ireland

• It’s not about the economy, stupid. It’s about the freedom to govern ourselves. We’re fighting for democracy, something I suspect would be recognised instinctively by many lying in US cemeteries, as Obama reminds us, across Europe.Jeffrey SlackDurham

• The current trade negotiation between the US and the EU is TTIP. This is potentially so disastrous in reducing standards that we should welcome being sent to the “back of the queue”.Richard BennettTwickenham

• Joyce Quin (Letters, 22 April) accuses Michael Gove of “trying to scare us into believing that the EU is a dictatorial monolith in which faceless bureaucrats impose laws at whim ... magically bypassing elected governments and European and national parliaments”. Is that not precisely the impression one gets from the EU’s approach to TTIP negotiations, taking place behind closed doors to which only corporate lobbyists have seemingly been given a key?Robin GillOxford

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