This seems quite ironical in view of the fact he obviously is no longer a UK citizen and could well have sufficient decency to accept our democratic decision to leave an organisation effectively run by unelected eurocrats and direct his vitriol somewhere else.
He makes much of the UK government shortcomings but very conveniently forgets to mention the large areas of distention within the EU itself and that there is every possibility Sweden may very well elect to leave in the near future. Plus if Macron is replaced by LePen, then France may well go down the same road - interesting!
As to his other points, yes the UK has received funding from the EU however this total comes nowhere near to offsetting what we have had to pay, even taking into account Thatcher's negotiated rebate.
He has conveniently distorted the Covid debate, the conversation was between the success of the UK government’s decision to go full ahead in our vaccination programme when compared to the publicly reported dithering of Van de Lyden and her cohorts on getting the EU programme started which eventually ended up miles behind ours, a pathetic example of EU indecision and incompetence.
Finally history will be the final arbiter on the UK decision to leave or indeed if the EU survives in its present form. However, if the current financial markets are any indication then Sterling against the Euro has been at its highest level in the last 5 years, food for thought.
S. Parsons, By email
If you want to talk about decency and democracy, funny how you "conveniently left out the fact" that Scotland wanted, and still wants, to stay in the EU. It has been undemocratically dragged out against its own will. As for your other claims, you have also "conveniently forgotten" the proven media bias by tabloids owned by billionaires who have gained a great deal Ieaving the UK, Russian interference in the Brexit campaign (their reasons for supporting a breakup of the EU should be obvious and the UK, with its propaganda - I mean media - was an easy target). The results? Still won't see the worse, but everything predicted - higher prices, shortages, bureaucratic nightmares/uncertainties for expats in Europe, and gradual departures from the highest environmental and civil standards in the Northern hemisphere - have already started to be visible.
By Justin from Lisbon on 20 Mar 2022, 09:09
S Parsons letter rather amusingly mentions the "success" of the UK's vaccination programme. Portugal, as part of the EU programme, cruised past the UK in June last year, and had reached 90% of the population fully vaccinated before the UK even reached 70%.
This was achieved by a combination of massive investment in the German Biontech vaccination, and the UK's reliance on AstraZeneca, which turned out to be a bit shonky so could not be given safely to younger recipients, thereby stalling the UK's programme until they could beg sufficient quantities of the superior EU-produced vaccines.
Brits then found out a year later that their PM had been having drunken work parties when all of this was going on, and they were all under house arrest.
Johnson then doubled down on his idiocy by somehow making Ukraine's resistance to a Russian invasion and their very public request to JOIN THE EU analagous to the UK's narrow decision (welcomed gleefully by Vladimir Putin, who'd funded the leave campaign) to leave the EU.
By Paul from Lisbon on 21 Mar 2022, 09:37