I read with interest two letters in last week’s issue, ‘Don’t blame the EU for our decline’ and ‘MP doesn’t have a large majority’.

The first from Julian Brazil hit the point exactly – we have become a people who are always ready to blame others for our problems and at the moment it is the EU’s fault for everything where in point of fact we have only ourselves to blame.

I remember as a younger man hearing what was then called our ‘balance of payments’ every month – this was the difference between our exports and imports. Almost every month our exports exceeded our imports. If the figures were close, then our politicians brought in what was then called ‘our invisible earnings’, namely banking and insurance, which at that time did not form part of the main figure, unlike now where they appear to form the main bulk of our export figures.

We now have no major industries, gone our world- leading shipbuilding, aircraft and other heavy manufacturing industries. What industries are left, as Cllr Brazil said, are foreign owned. All parts of our society have to take responsibility: successive politicians, in particularly our MEPs who could have worked harder for our corner within the EU, but also our own MPs who, in general only look after their own short-term or parties’ interests; our workers and their trade unions for their self interest and restrictive practices policies; also our weak managers, all of which in one way or another have contributed to this country’s decline.

I remember the public and media outcry when French president Charles de Gaulle twice blocked our entry in to the then Common Market, but we did finally join and, yes it has its faults but, despite views to the contrary, this country has done very well from it for the past 40 years.

But now we have to face the the prospect of leaving the EU. Since that decision was made, our pound has fallen around 10 per cent; we have dropped to the sixth wealthiest nation, behind India, a country we still give foreign aid to; austerity continues and is getting worse; plus our ranking within the world has declined dramatically and our future is extremely uncertain.

But that brings me to the second letter; from Laurie Taylor; on our voting system and taking this point I go back to the EU referendum. The turnout for this election was 71 per cent, which means that 29 per cent of the electorate did not vote. This means that 34.15 per cent voted remain, 36.84 per cent voted leave and, of course, 29 per cent did not vote. Breaking that down into actual numbers means that out of 65.7 million registered voters only 1.7 million more voted to leave than remain or 2.7 per cent of the population and 19.1 million (almost a third of the electorate) failed to cast any vote. How can the fate of this country’s future be determined by 2.7 per cent of the population?

We still have no idea of what the final agreed deal will be but, as this is such an important decision which will affect this country for decades, it cannot be left in the hands of our MPs.

There are so many unknowns, surely it is imperative that one of two things should happen. First, we stop all negotiations and continue to remain within EU. I know there is not a politician within any of our political parties brave enough to make that decision, so, secondly, the electorate vote on the final leave deal before it is implemented, vote agree the terms then we leave, vote to reject and we remain in the EU.

More and more people, which includes Nigel Farage, are questioning the course that these negotiations are taking and the need for a second vote. Soft Brexit, hard Brexit, no deal, nobody knows what any of this means to the ordinary person in the street. We appear to be moving to a slow form of suicide, and I am with Mr Brazil in my lack of trust for our MPs.

So what as an individual can you do or are you happy to sink in to a mire of mediocrity?

Well there is a website www.devonforeurope.org which is well worth looking at if you feel strongly about the remaining or you can write and continue to write to your MP.

As a final point Laurie Taylor may remember that we did have a vote a few years ago on whether we wanted proportional representation, this was rejected, but maybe it’s time to revert to the Australian system, where you have to vote in an election – with some except­ions – or face a serious fine or, as I am led to believe, loss of your citizenship.

I have faith in the British people to do the right thing, but they need a wake-up call and I hope that this issue is it.

Ray Wakelin

Jubilee Road, Totnes