YP Letters: EU owes its very existence to Britain and Sir Winston

AFTER watching an excellent programme commemorating Passchendaele, what a waste of young lives. For what? We can only speculate how things would have turned out should Germany have been victorious in 1918.

Not so if Hitler had won in 1945. If you had been coloured, of certain religions, sexuality, or ancestry, I doubt your families would still be living in Continental Europe as we know it today.

Post-war it was proposed to create a Common Market in Europe, which we voted for. This is what the greatest modern European, Sir Winston Churchill, said at the time.

He wanted the countries of Continental Europe to come closer together in union and co-operation and if they wished it to the point of merging into a United States of Europe. Britain, he said, would be a friend and co-operator, but Britain, with its dominions and empire, would not – and could not – be part of that European close combination. To the EU negotiators demanding that we pay huge amounts of money to leave the EU, I say you owe us your very existence.

From: John Fisher, Menwith Hill.

THE delays at EU borders drew the usual critical remarks and the farcical request for our instant departure from the EU. It would be wise to take some time to consider the following questions.

Where is the Prime Minister who introduced the referendum which created Brexit? Where is the former leader of Ukip who supported Brexit? Where is Ukip, the party who thrived on Brexit?

If Brexit was such a popular idea, it appears to have suffered a serious lack of support and this has now raised the prospect of a new political party to exit Brexit.

From: John Cole, Oakroyd Terrace, Baildon, Shipley.

RECENT polls show that if there were a referendum today on EU membership the vote for “Remain” would be between 52 and 56 per cent. At the same time another poll found that 70 per cent of respondents felt that the “Leave” outcome of June last year should be respected and enacted.

This can be explained by a number of “Remainers” feeling that going ahead with Brexit is somehow the democratic thing to do. Such thinking can be classed as generous and gracious. Alternatively it could be viewed as sentimental and sloppy-thinking.

For a variety of reasons (including the shed-load of lies coming from the “Leave” camp), the June 2016 result does not deserve to be respected.