MR NEIMER (Letters, July 2) is quite right to be offended by the “big favour” phrase he quotes from my letter. However, if he can bear to re-read the opening paragraph of that letter, he will see that I am targeting an attitude prevalent among our most prominent Brexiteers.
They express views which include a sense of entitlement and arrogance verging on outright hostility to other EU members, and they really do express their sentiments about World War II in the callow, almost childish, terms I have parodied.
We are not talking here about the decencies of shared respect, remembrance, or gratitude, but a demand for unthinking and permanent deference from all outsiders.
If anything is dismissive and sneering, this attitude is.
At the same time, these people make crass comparisons between our (wholly self-inflicted) EU negotiation difficulties and the Blitz, which must feel insulting to those who actually experienced the real thing, and they show an unhealthy excitement at the prospect of the perils and privations which could result from a No-Deal conclusion, which nobody voted for.
If Mr. Neimer has not yet come across these “No-Deal”, “Them and Us”, high-profile Brexiteers, he is fortunate. Their power and influence seem to be growing and by October it will be very hard to escape their rhetoric.
Christine Tempest
Romulus Close
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