Our flawed political structure needs reform

The achievement within Western Europe since 1945 has been historic.

It has become a single market without tariffs. We move freely across countries able to reside and work where we wish. The idea of a war is ridiculous. Furthermore, the stand-off with Russia succeeded and the Iron Curtain has been swept away. That evil creation of a mined electrified fence stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea is a remote memory. Then it went wrong.

A single currency and interest rate cannot work across diverse nations and will not work for a long time to come. We have been poorly served by politicians and probably particularly by senior civil servants, some of whom have confused their responsibilities and become subservient to unelected bodies of remote mandarins. The result has been to threaten everything achieved since 1945.

Democracy is beginning to assert itself and the days of the politicians who pass on to their electorate the platitudes handed down from Brussels are numbered. The single currency has done immeasurable harm across Europe. It has injected into the region instability and economic demise not experienced since the 1930s. To now suggest that a yes vote in the referendum will be a panacea for ‘stability’ is absurd.

The present structure has already proved itself manifestly flawed. For politicians and their advisors to suggest otherwise is gratuitous and potentially gravely irresponsible. If the political classes persist extreme fringe parties will become mainstream and great harm may be done.

Charles Hazell

Fethard

Co Tipperary