Blackfriar takes a back seat as both sides have final say in the EU debate

The Yorkshire Post is one of very few newspapers to take a neutral stance on the referendum.
EU flags fly at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels.EU flags fly at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels.
EU flags fly at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels.

We are not insulting the intelligence of our readers by telling them which way to vote and Blackfriar is proud to work for a paper that has behaved with dignified neutrality. Our job is to report the news, not make it up.

With this in mind, Blackfriar will take a backseat today and allow some of Yorkshire’s major employers to have their say.

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Burberry is the latest major Yorkshire employer to write to staff to warn of the dangers of Brexit.

Halifax-born CEO Christopher Bailey said: “Whilst our roots are firmly British, our outlook is global. We have stores, offices, customers and employees all over the world and it is thanks to our strong position in Europe that Burberry has been able to grow over recent decades.”

However, Brexit campaigner John Longworth said that the services sector ​i​s being constrained by Britain’s membership of the EU.

“We are prevented from doing trade deals by the EU,” he said. “Any service sector business in Yorkshire is constrained by Britain’s membership of the EU.”

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Mr Longworth said the suggestion by pro-EU campaigners that international companies would move out of Britain if it left the EU was “laughable”.

“It’s what people said would happen if we didn’t join the euro,” he said. “And that didn’t happen.”

​​Andrew Cook, chairman of engineering group William Cook Holdings,​ dismissed concerns about unnecessary red tape coming from Brussels.

“If Britain votes Leave, the advantages of the single market and the free movement of skilled labour will be denied to UK manufacturers​,” he said.​

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“We face a giant leap back to the 1970s. These were unhappy times, when over-mighty and irresponsible trades unions drove up wages while producing shoddy goods and services for an increasingly frustrated and shrinking domestic market.”

Clive Harper, group finance director of Leeds-based industrial coatings firm Corrocoat, said: “I can’t identify anything the EU does for us. If we weren’t already in the EU I couldn’t think of any arguments for joining. We have struck our own trade agreements around the world. Being outside the EU would enable Britain to establish itself as a bigger world power.”

​​Asda​’s outgoing CEO Andy Clarke, said: “As the country faces one of the most important decisions in its history, I felt that it was right to make our position as a company clear – Britain should remain within the EU.

“I believe that a single market is less complex than negotiating new trade deals with Europe and that leaving the EU would take Britain into the unknown at a delicate time for the global and domestic economy.”

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This time tomorrow we will have our answer and half the population will be bitterly disappointed.

If Yorkshire is to thrive we need to forget the Nazi rhetoric that has plagued this campaign, set aside our differences and work together.​