Readers respond to an article by Rafael Behr and to other Brexit developments
Rafael Behr concludes that “the UK will give up wealth in exchange for sovereignty” (This is the last exit to Brexit. But in truth, there was only ever one road, 8 December). We did not have to look very far in that same edition of the Guardian (US nuclear warhead standoff ‘has significant implications for UK’, 8 December) to see what sovereignty actually amounts to. It was a timely reminder that the UK has always had to rely on others – in this case, the US – even for what successive British governments have described as the “ultimate assurance of our national security”, a reference to the so-called independent nuclear deterrent.
As the late Anthony King observed in his book Who Governs Britain?, if sovereignty means acting independently without outside interference, the UK “is no longer remotely a sovereign state”. He added: “Nor are the vast majority of other states in the world.”
Richard Norton-Taylor
London
