To heal itself, the UK must face up to why it voted to leave the EU | Letters

By Guardian Staff · The Guardian Opinion

We are watching Britain lose itself in imperial nostalgia and self-delusion, writes Prof Berthold Schoene. And Ian Arnott remembers a warning to Brexiters Michael Gove and Boris Johnson This kind of article annoys the hell out of me ( Boats, bankers and borders: five symbols that sum up Brexit a decade on, 20 June ). We all know that the leave campaign was built on lies and manipulation. We are yet to see a list of Brexit benefits. Or, indeed, a list of names of the very few who did actually benefit. And none of the mendacious opportunists who drove the leave campaign have ever been held accountable. It is truly outrageous! Meanwhile, Brexit took a very real toll on the many anglophile Europeans who, like me, entrusted their lives to the postwar utopian ideals and humanist principles embodied by the EU. Shocked that almost no one seemed willing to make a persuasive case for remain, I applied for British citizenship after 25 years in the UK and became British just a few weeks before the referendum. As a result, I was spared the worst of the nightmarish bureaucratic toxicity that was subsequently to consume many of my European friends and colleagues. Continue reading...