THERE are parallels between the lead-up to the Iraq war and the no-deal exit from the EU.

The true-life movie Shock and Awe depicts the madness in the US Government and how only one news agency saw through the Bush administration’s lies. Knight Ridder journalists discovered that Bush, needing a country to bomb after 9/11, had decided it would be Iraq. All he wanted was an excuse.

We are going to leave the EU with no deal, but what does that mean and why have the media not described exactly what will happen? Scheduled flights will not be able to take off and land in Europe. You can jump on the Eurostar, but you will need a visa to enter France, another to go through Belgium, another to Germany and so on.

London house prices will crash as banks relocate high earners to Frankfurt, Dublin and Paris. All goods into Europe will have to have the correct paperwork and tariffs paid. The delay in customs processing will damage perishable goods. Mile-long queues of lorries and cars will build up approaching Dover and Calais. The car industry will relocate to Europe because so many parts in UK-built cars come from Europe and of course many cars sold to Europe will be tariffed.

The UK will not have access to European intelligence, putting Britain at risk of terrorism. Britain will be excluded from the European Galileo satellite navigation system. France will refuse to hold displaced people from war-torn countries in Calais allowing them to travel to Dover, where a new holding centre will have to be built.

Farmers will lose their CAP benefits and face barriers to exporting their produce and livestock. They will also face competition from the US as it dumps cheap food onto the British market. The government will find they are in a new fisheries war, deploying frigates to see off Dutch and Spanish fishing boats from Scottish waters. Fishermen will find difficulty clearing customs quickly enough when they wish to sell their catch to Europe.

Geolocated labelled goods will be abandoned to please America, enabling all manner of fake labelled goods to be sold in supermarkets. Those supermarkets that source their food in Europe will have to substantially increase their prices. Soft fruit is already perishing in fields because of the no-migrant policies.

The health service will collapse through a shortage of nurses and doctors and people will die as a consequence. What is left of the NHS will be sold to American private medicare companies requiring insurance payments. These payments will be structured depending on what level of care you want to ensure or can afford.

The gap between the rich and the poor will soar, maybe even statutory pensions could be at risk. Pensioners living in Europe will not receive their pensions. Families may have to resort to the African and Asian extended family care system where earnings are pooled. Of course the media will blame Europe and the government will react by expelling Europeans. Politically it will move the country even more to the right, giving succour to racist groups. Order could break down. Perhaps those in Scotland who opposed independence will be pragmatic enough to understand that the status quo is no longer an option and that there is no future in being shackled to a dysfunctional Westminster Government.

Mike Herd
Highland

TWO things occur to me about Prime Minister Theresa May’s extraordinary appearance on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday.

First, has a serving PM ever had to go on a TV show to explain policy? And isn’t it curious her doing this when she coyly took such a back seat during the last election campaign?

Doesn’t it seem to reveal that she either can’t muster adequate support from her ministers for her Brexit “initiative’ or she can’t trust them to explain her policy convincingly?

Either way, doesn’t her appearance on the programme make her seem isolated, a “dead PM walking”?

Second, once again isn’t the BBC seen to be little more than the mouthpiece for the establishment vested interest?

There was no balance in her interview, just another opportunity for the forces of Brexit clique to be given a free shot at trying to justify the abject mess they have placed the UK in. Whatever happened to fair debate and the alleged impartiality of the BBC?

Not only is the wagon heading over the Brexit cliff edge, doesn’t this interview – and the very need for it in the first place – clearly show us that the driver has jumped off in the sure and certain knowledge of the inherent disaster? There again, who could be surprised, since the first driver, David Cameron, also left the troubled Brexit wagon with indecent haste? Over to you Nicola. We’re waiting.

Jim Taylor
Edinburgh

THE rubbish spouted by Trump, Johnson, Farage, Rees-Mogg, May, Fox, et al, reminds me of a story. A man worked for 40 years at a wheelbarrow factory, and at the end of every shift he walked out of the front gate pushing a barrow loaded with rubbish. The security guards only ever saw the rubbish and not the barrow.

It gets ever more clear to me that the garbage being spouted by big-name politicians and their cheerleaders is designed to make us ignore the wheelbarrow carrying the garbage.

What they really don’t want us to see is that they are on a mission to destroy the concept of peaceful cooperation and human rights, which is the true prize we all get from the existence of the European Union. They are not out to destroy the EU because it has failed, they are after it because it has been so successful.

The EU came into being after two catastrophic wars which almost destroyed our continent’s cultural achievements. Over many centuries the people who rule the British Isles have been more than happy to keep the countries of Europe at each others throats, and the people who are pushing Brexit for all they are worth want to return to that state of affairs, in order to protect their elevated positions and put the rest of us back in our place.If we don’t stand and fight now for peaceful cooperation and human rights, we will witness a facsimile of the early 20th century unfold before us. And we all know who will profit from that.

Jon Southerington
Deerness, Orkney