Readers respond to Jonathan Freedland’s call for a positive message to make the case against Britain leaving the EU and other articles on Brexit

It was so heartening to read Jonathan Freedland’s vigorous call for a proactive coordinated campaign to persuade the public that Brexit has to be stopped (We can’t wait for a people’s vote to make the case against Brexit, 9 February).

His logic is impeccable: the Labour demands for alignment with the single market, maintenance of workers’ rights and direct influence on future EU trade deals are already secured by virtue of our EU membership. In my view, there is also a transcending factor. We have all benefited from being European citizens, socially, economically and politically. This concept of citizenship has directly secured the peace process in the island of Ireland. In total good faith after the British-Irish agreement of 1998, the Republic of Ireland removed its constitutional claim to the “six counties”. In Northern Ireland, we have struggled to maintain a power-sharing assembly with a commitment to keep channels open as good neighbours with the south and as members of the EU. It is not surprising that 56% of the Northern Irish voted in the referendum to remain in the EU.

For the sake of a prosperous and peaceful future in the UK and Ireland, a second, fully informed, referendum is vital. There is no time to lose.

Dr Brian Caul

Coleraine, Northern Ireland

• Jonathan Freedland is right, of course – the case for staying in the EU has to be based on the advantages it brings, not on “project fear”. To this end, next weekend could the Guardian produce a small poster displaying some of those advantages. We could then put it in our windows and show how so many of us feel.

Julia Messenger

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

• Jonathan Freedland claims that Labour’s demands replicate what we already have under EU membership. But Labour’s demands do not include the EU “benefits” of being banned from controlling immigration into Britain, or an 11-figure annual donation to subsidise roadbuilding in Greece, or the breeding of bulls to be tortured to death in bullfighting rings in Spain, or corruption in Romania.

Christopher Clayton

Waverton, Cheshire

• Admiral Karl Dönitz could conduct a naval war from Bordeaux in the early 1940s (until his U-boat pens were disabled by the Cockleshell Heroes). So natural adequate harbour capacity is not in doubt on the Garonne. Surely Bordeaux’s wine shippers can find enough shipping and dock capacity within easy reach of Saint-Émilion and the Haut-Médoc to get any amount of claret to the English channel ports without trudging all the way to Calais (Race to get French claret into Britain, 9 February)?

Eric Potts

St Albans, Hertfordshire

• So Brexit government needs “a horizon scanner – someone who is looking up and out into the working environment to spot early indications of approaching issues or emergencies” (Civilians being hired to work in emergency command centre, 9 February). There were 750,000 of these rare individuals on the street outside the cabinet office not long ago.

David Robjant

Cople, Bedfordshire

• The very poorest developing countries are not at risk from Brexit, even under a no-deal scenario (Brexit could put 1.7 million people around the globe into extreme poverty – study, theguardian.com, 4 February). Following a campaign by Traidcraft Exchange and others, the government committed in June 2017 to give equivalent market access to all least-developed countries, including Cambodia.

Of much greater concern are those slightly less poor, but still economically vulnerable, countries that currently rely on free trade agreements with the EU for access to the UK market. They are now being pushed to sign up to new deals with the UK on worse terms. They are in effect being threatened with new high tariffs for their key exports (bananas for Ghana, grapes for Namibia, sugar for Swaziland) to get them to agree.

This is wrong. The UK should offer these economically vulnerable countries unilateral market access. That way the UK can ensure millions of people in developing countries do not pay the price for a no-deal Brexit.

Liz May

Director of policy and advocacy, Traidcraft Exchange

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