In your leader (“The return of the ‘British disease’”, February 2) on the causes of the country’s economic malaise, you state that our “EU exit has also eroded the quality of governance”.
This is true not just from an economic standpoint — attested by ill-considered and costly lurches in government policy — but also politically, as evidenced by the sharp deterioration in standards of public life under the ruling Tory party.
The divisive Brexit project lies at the heart of this. It was sold to the British public based on a farrago of misinformation and untruths (just listen to what the protagonists promised in 2016), thereby setting a new low bar for acceptable public discourse and behaviour.
We should not be surprised at the seamless mutation of such “standards” into sleaze, corruption and a casual willingness to usurp laws and treaties. The self-inflicted damage to Britain from Brexit, in other words, is far worse than just economic.
Richard Wright
London NW8, UK
This post was originally published on Financial Times
