The true essence of the EU is to unite us

“We’ve only just extracted ourselves from one union why on earth would I want to vote in favour of joining another?” - these were the words uttered from the lips of an Estonian mother to her daughter when it became clear that Estonia along with nine other former eastern bloc countries were to apply to join the EU. This mother, like many others of her generation, had suffered the deprivations of the Soviet regime having been transported to the eastern camps as a young girl with her parents only to be allowed to return to her homeland some time later but this time without her parents who ‘did not qualify’ for repatriation. That was the last she was to see of them.

We will never know whether this mother voted to join the EU but 11 years into Estonia’s membership her daughter now holds down a good job, is married with a family and living in the UK where her mother regularly visits from their family home in Estonia. This scenario is undoubtedly replicated across all the EU member states where people who had simply existed under a grey, faceless and repressive regime were able to step finally into the open and make a life for themselves. Surely this is the true essence of the EU project. We can argue about the economics and the politics but at the end of the day the EU’s real strength is its ability to bring people from many different nations and from all walks of life to live and work alongside each other and in so doing break down the barriers that a century of bitter and ugly world wars with massive loss of life did not succeed in doing.

So to turn the Estonian mother’s question around - why on earth would the UK want to leave such a project? Why would the UK want to turn its back on the commitment the EU has made over many decades to not only protect its people but also to create a fertile environment for individual furtherance?

Such an act could only be seen as grossly irresponsible and deeply uncaring on many levels at a time when the many challenges presented across this much troubled world require a European response which is demonstrably united in form and collectively wise in content.

J. Wells

Essex

As someone with thirty five years’ experience working in special educational needs I read your recent story about increasingly adversarial SEN tribunals with sadness. The relatively new SEN code of practice is, in my view, strong on rhetoric and inadequate in providing the resourcing required to make its aspirations deliverable. This legislation cruelly raises the hopes and expectations of parents of young people with special educational needs. At the same time it leaves front-line professionals in the invidious position of knowing many of those expectations cannot be met within current levels of resourcing and staffing. A toxic mix that was prophesied by many of us when we responded to the initial consultation process on this legislation. National policymakers should, in my view, hang their heads in shame because this whole chain of events was totally foreseeable.

Pete Crockett

Address unknown

In response to “Racist killer hired as assistant at special needs school close to murder scene.”

We speak to people with criminal convictions every day who are struggling to find work many years after they have served their sentence. With over a quarter of people out-of-work having received a criminal record in the last 10 years, it’s in society’s interest to enable people who have offended in the past to become contributors to society rather than burdens on the state.

With over 10.5 million people in the UK with a criminal record, we need to encourage employers to treat every applicant on a case-by-case basis and not have blanket exclusions towards people with criminal records. That’s why campaigns like Ban the Box, and the recent commitment by David Cameron to apply this approach to the civil service, are so important in changing the attitudes of employers towards people with a criminal record.

People who have committed crime cannot change the past, but they can focus on what they do in the future. Ian Devlin looks to have done everything he can since he was released from prison to become an active, positive member of society. The school clearly recognised this in their recruitment process. We should encourage more employers to do the same.

Christopher Stacey

Address unknown

Gordon Brown seems a puzzling choice to win over Labour supporters who are leaning towards Leave, given his track record of contempt for those with concerns about EU migration (remember ‘that bigoted woman’).

His task is to persuade us ‘it’s the economy (stupid)’ and that we should ignore massive net immigration. But the latter can hardly be a negligible issue when the Remain project is to grow the economy by growing the population through migration. We are asked to believe that we need yet more jobs when actually we need fewer people.

John Riseley

Harrogate

What is it with these folk who go on about all this EU funding we receive. Let me put it this way: you save up a certain amount of money in the bank every month - say the HSBC - then after a while decide you want a new fitted kitchen costing £10,000. When you draw out your hard-earned cash to pay for it, would you consider your kitchen has been ‘funded’ by the HSBC bank? Of course not because it was you who put the money there in the first place. The only difference between this example and EU economics is that Brussels would have demanded an additional £3,000 for the trouble. Vote Leave next week for a better life.

Peter Flynn

Sheffield