THE heavy vote in the West Midlands to leave the EU by people in Wyre Forest and the Black Country said it all. We have been abandoned and have little control over our lives and work.

The last thing that we need is to be told by those who voted to remain that we have made a mistake because we are uneducated, or even that we did not mean it and do not know what we have done. All over the country deindustrialised communities voted to leave. They have lost their industry and their public services have been wrecked. There is little secure work to support families. All this has happened under the EU.

The EU is not a cosy international community. Surely what was done to Greece showed us that. It is a capitalist club which unites big business of Europe, not its people. It was set up to compete with, not to work with, the capitalist blocs in Russia, China, India and Brazil where wages and conditions of work are appalling.

Stephen Brown is rightly worried about the divisions in our society.

(Shuttle July 14). But he is wrong to want to overturn the referendum result. These divisions have not been caused by the recent vote. They existed before the vote and are the consequence of EU membership.

The way forward for Europe has to be the growth of a movement to bring capital under public control so that each country can provide the industry and services needed by its people.

Nigel Gilbert Franche