THE Brexiteer’s cry “Make Britain great again” ignores salient facts.

Great Britain is a geographical term not a historical or political term.

The name the United Kingdom is the name of this country so that Northern Ireland can be included.

The most prosperous era in the life of the United Kingdom have been the years we have been in the European Union.

Before that the “Great” Britain years the Brexiteers nostalgically yearn for were the years of an empire where foreign natives were ruthlessly exploited for our benefit. The years of Victoria, the Edwardian era, and desperate depressions of the inter war years.

Years when poverty was the lot of the majority.

The 1940s, 1950s, 1960s was the era when socially-enlightened policies of the Labour Party and One Nation Conservatism produced great improvement in the lives of the poor.

Then we clamoured to join the burgeoning European community.

We got in and we prospered.

Now we are set to leave the most prosperous, peaceful community of nations ever known.

For what?

A nation perceived as xenophobic and selfish sliding into economic decline.

Terry Haines

Gloucester