First Boris Johnson, now Priti Patel – why can British politicians get away with so much?

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Boris Johnson claims Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was engaged in (what Iran considers) subversive activity, when she was actually on holiday. Zaghari-Ratcliffe faces the prospect of five more years in an Iranian prison.

Priti Patel claims to have been on holiday, when she was actually engaged in subversive activity. Priti Patel keeps her job. And so does Boris Johnson.

Britain is truly through the looking glass.

Paula Kirby
Inverness

Rob Merrick relates that Priti Patel assured him that Boris Johnson and the Foreign Office knew of her unauthorised trip to Israel. Only after this was discovered to be untrue did she change her story. If someone knowingly makes a statement that is untrue they are by definition lying. Unless of course they are an “honourable” member of Parliament. Would she admit this transgression? Of course not. Choosing instead to utter such waffle as: “In hindsight, I can see how my enthusiasm to engage in this way could be misread.”

In a similar vein, Boris Johnson, like so many in power, could not bring himself to admit to being fallible. He clearly stated that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been in Iran teaching journalists. Could he admit to being wrong or lying? Again sadly no. His pathetic response was that his words had been “misinterpreted”. What is wrong with these people?

G Forward
Stirling

Why the three-week delay? Surely it doesn’t take that long to bundle 58 fag packets in to a cardboard box?

Owen Leeds
Preston

I thought that the red poppies were optional? However, you wouldn’t think that if you watched the BBC. Their presenters don’t seem to have the freedom to chose not to wear them. Premier League footballers seem to have to wear them as well. Ironic isn’t it?

Does anyone remember what the red poppy actually represents? I ask because the original meaning has been lost, and the military public relations machine has ambushed it. They’ve now turned it into a way of manipulating the public into “supporting the troops”, and by extension, backing current, often illegal and unnecessary conflicts.

In the First World War the vast majority of fatalities were military. A hundred years on, around 90 per cent are civilian. It is therefore far more fitting that people buy the white poppy, because that represents all of the people who die in war. The ongoing refugee crisis is a good indicator of this.

If we really want to move towards ending all wars (and we must), we should remember everyone who is killed, from all nations, and not just “our boys”.

Colin Crilly
Tooting

In a joint letter on 28 September 2017, the TUC and CBI called for unilateral guarantees both for EU27 citizens in the UK and Britons in the EU27 “within weeks”. We are still waiting.

New Europeans, the CBI, the TUC and over five million citizens are still waiting because since then nothing has happened. This lack of good faith and political will is already leading tens of thousands of EU27 citizens to leave; the statistics have now confirmed what we have known for months, EU27 citizens are leaving Britain.

One example among the many who contacted New Europeans to tell us their story is Alejandro, an IT specialist from Spain. He told us: “Britain has become a kind of toxic environment for my family and me. I have a good job, but why should my partner and I have to justify our existence every time we try to move flat or if our daughter needs treatment on the NHS?”

The Home Office’s “hostile environment” strategy is dividing and weakening. The strategy is not only immoral – it is bad for British industry, for British public services, for British universities, for art and culture in Britain, for British retailers and for British farms. Look at Giorgios, one of our business members, now relocating to Germany; he recently told us: “Many of the best people in my sector will vote with their feet – whatever the UK decides to do, they want to stay in Europe.”

As well as the economic damage – small and medium-sized high-tech firms are most at risk – there is also a growing human dimension to this tragedy. This is a perspective the CBI conference on Monday failed to address. More of our members are reporting heightened levels of anxiety and emotional distress. They are aware this is a direct consequence of lack of clarity about their future rights and status in the UK. There has also been a rise in hate crime in Britain against EU citizens. Many are reporting this through New Europeans’ dedicated website page.

In these circumstances, it is not acceptable that the UK government and the EU should continue to negotiate over the rights of EU27 citizens in the UK and Britons in the EU.

We now ask for others across business and civil society to join us and add your voices again to the many voices calling for immediate, comprehensive and unilateral guarantees.

The UK government has the power to act unilaterally, as does the EU. They must do this without further delay to avoid an unjust and damaging exodus of EU citizens from the UK and the mental anguish of millions of people, included Britons abroad, whose only “crime” was to settle in another EU member state.

Roger Casale, founder and CEO, New Europeans

Oh Sirena Bergman (Stop hating millenials): the reason people criticise your generation is exemplified by your arrogant article.

I’m in my seventies now, and it was my generation in the 1960s (without the help of social media) that marched to ban the bomb, camped out at Greenham Common for years to protest against the American missile site, invented modern women’s lib., burnt our bras, got rid of outdated obscenity laws (Lady Chatterley’s Lover), demonstrated against the Vietnam War, and encouraged women to go out to work after they were married (nurses and teachers previously had to resign when they married). So I suggest you research social history in a bit more detail before you arrogantly claim that no one has done it before.

We all have to work with the technology that’s available: it’s what we call progress. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that you’re the inventors of social change.

Jill Buss
Alresford