Blair should be honest about his immigration legacy

The Blair government's choice not to invoke transitional arrangements when Eastern Europe joined the EU in 2004 was taken with no prior public discussion.

By contrast, months of debate in Austria, France, Germany and Italy led to the imposition of seven-year controls - the maximum possible - largely because of pressure from trades unions and left-wing parties.

Britain's decision was greeted with astonishment in central Europe, and elsewhere.

John Doherty

Vienna, Austria

Janet Street-Porter, in her column of 9 September, castigates critics of Jacob Rees-Mogg for considering him unfit for “high office” because of his strict Catholicism, comparing his situation to Tim Farron. Most of us would take a slightly wider view, and take into account his support of zero-hours contracts and blanket privatisation, and his disdain for green energy and foreign aid, among other issues.

Such views, taken alongside those on abortion and equal marriage (not to mention his parenting skills), suggest that Rees-Mogg is not a suitable leader for any political party in the 21st century.

Martin Heaton

Cheshire

Please can I record my dismay concerning the way that some journalists have jumped on the opportunity to beat up Catholics by using Jacob Rees-Mogg as a shining example of the faith? He is not.

All faiths have their extremists and fundamentalists, and observers are all too quick to equate their actions and attitudes with the mainstream. As a practising Catholic myself, I can assure your readers that Rees-Mogg's views do not reflect the views of the overwhelming majority of our faith. Indeed, I would argue that his views do not reflect those of Jesus as expressed in the gospels.

There is also a prevalent attitude amongst the chattering classes that it is not possible to express a Christian faith in public without being derided. This is nonsense. People respect expressions of faith, and probably wish they could share them. The example of Tim Farron being forced to resign as Liberal Democrat leader does not hold water. Farron was simply not up to the job. Nothing to do with his Christianity.

Bernard Cudd

Morpeth

I have always believed that Members of Parliament were representatives of their constituents and not delegates. That seems to suggest that they should be more inclined to vote in accordance with their convictions and beliefs rather than blindly follow the "will" of their constituents. MPs who supported Remain presumably believed that was in the best interests of the country. It seems a mystery therefore that many of them can now vote to leave the EU.

As an elected councillor at all three levels – parish, district and county – in the 1990s I twice had to support projects, in due course successfully delivered, against the claimed "will of the people", expressed in private polling, then supported by parish councils. However, both polls were deeply flawed. In one case only those areas most likely to be disadvantaged by the project were polled. A second poll, covering the whole community, showed a majority in favour.

In the second case, the poll was so blatantly biased in its wording that it would have been difficult to vote in favour of the project without seeming to want disaster to strike.

The referendum poll was not flawed in the same sense, but it was deeply flawed in that the question put was too simple. It was like deciding whether to put your money in bank A or B without first finding out the quality of their respective services.

We are now steadily finding out the qualities of the two options on offer. I would challenge MPs now to evaluate these options honestly and vote with their genuine convictions.

David Buckton

Cambridge

The 560 MPs who voted for a referendum on Europe thereby abandoned parliamentary democracy in favour of government by plebiscite. Consequently debate on the Great Withdrawal Bill is just rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

Roger Cook

Salisbury

The well-informed MPs who represent us in our democratically elected Parliament are capitulating to Brexit even though the majority of 480 MPs (versus 159) voted for the UK to remain in a united Europe.

Our elected MPs are submitting to the demands of 17 million ill-informed and deceived people. They are allowing 65 million people to be stripped of their European citizenship.

This capitulation by our Government and Parliament will be recorded as the greatest mistake in the history of the United Kingdom.

It seems that democracy ended on the day of the Brexit referendum – we are told that it cannot be challenged.

The Government is adding to this loss of democracy by denying parliamentary challenge and debate.

Our MPs have relinquished responsibility and our democracy has been dismantled by a few fanatical nationalists.

Is this the sovereignty we wished to regain?

We are about to lose cooperations, collaborations, freedoms, protections and rights that took 60 years to build.

Martin Deighton

Address supplied

Kenneth Clarke has been reported as saying he could not vote for the Brexit bill without further assurances. Even if he gets them, are they worth the air they are breathed with? Governments have a poor history of honouring assurances given when legislating – think how terrorism laws have been abused by the authorities. Even less will a future government of a different colour respect such assurances.

If assurances are needed they must be written into the legislation itself. Nothing else works.

David Watson

South Oxfordshire

The recent concern expressed by Ofsted and Muslim campaign groups that the inclusion of hijabs in primary school uniform lists may represent external pressure on schools to change their policies is of concern.

The wearing of the hijab generally starts once girls have reached adolescence. However, the reality is that girls mature at different ages, with some beginning menarche at primary school. Therefore a uniform ban would actually affect such girls’ rights to practise their faith.

More importantly, wearing the hijab is a matter for Muslim parents and their daughters to decide and not Ofsted or Muslim campaigners to get involved with. One could equally argue that school uniforms that do not allow boys to wear dresses are just as sexualising!

I fear that once again this is just another attempt to attack Islam.

Sarah Waseem

Kingston Upon Thames

Kashmira Gander’s article about wine-tasting this week was full of interesting information about choosing and enjoying wine, but it did a disservice to those who are “clueless about plonk” by giving the impression that when the wine waiter asks you if you would like to taste the wine, he is expecting you to give a learned commentary about it or say whether you like it.

In fact all he wants to know is whether it’s corked or tastes unpleasant in some way. This is normally quite straightforward, because it seldom does.

Some bravery is required, however, if you think the wine is corked. This happened to me once in a smart hotel restaurant where we were entertaining a couple of friends. I thought the white wine was corked, took a deep breath and said somewhat hesitantly that I thought it was corked. The sommelier poured a little into his spoon, tasted it and agreed, much to my relief!

If the wine is in a screw-cap bottle, as is increasingly the case nowadays, you can earn some points by saying you don’t need to taste it because it is in a screw-cap bottle (and therefore can’t be corked). It is just possible, but very unlikely, that it will be spoilt in some other way, but worth the risk.

Bernard Theobald

Nottingham