I FELT sad to read the vitriol against the EU expressed by Abi Jones (Opinion, January 16) at a time when the government has asked for reconciliation in the country.

Although my experience of the EU, particularly through student exchanges, is entirely positive I recognise that it has been different for others.

Personally, I can only feel grief as the European part of my identity is torn from me.

However, I hope that those who want Britain to plough a solitary path in the world will now seek to bring us all together by not indulging in overt triumphalism as we set out on what, without doubt, will be a very long and bumpy process of separation ahead. I ask that we hold hands in the dark.

Patrick Jones Cheshire