How Brexit spells end of United Kingdom – Yorkshire Post Letters

PHILIP Rycroft wrote a concise review of challenges facing this apparently Disunited Kingdom predicting that pressure for a second referendum on Scottish independence could be the major political story of 2021 (The Yorkshire Post, January 23).

While apparently unconcerned that they come across to many young Scots as bossy controlling grandads, Boris Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer remain set against a further referendum but will in the end accept one if the alternative, as author Val McDermid suggests, is civil disobedience leading to English troops on the streets of Edinburgh.

My reading of the Scottish press is that to a greater extent than in England younger Scots are distraught that their right to freedom of movement to live, work, study and travel throughout Europe has been casually and callously taken away by an English Tory government now apparently supported by Labour.

Scotland has a more internationalist social democratic tradition than England, as shown by a determination to continue participating in the life-enhancing Erasmus student exchanges. It is very likely that these social and cultural factors will outweigh the economic in the independence debate just as was the case with Brexit.

Hence the irony that the Brexiteer delusion of sovereignty will break up the very nation whose destiny its misguided advocates longed to improve.

From: David Turner Rhodes, Harrogate.

FURTHER to Philip Rycroft’s excellent article on ‘Disunited Kingdom’, may I suggest that for a devolved but ‘United Four’ might we look constructively at the Scandinavian example of four independent countries united by a Nordic Council.

This could work well for England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales meeting in rotation to discuss mutual issues like joint borders, transport, defence etc.

The British Empire was transformed into the Commonwealth. It is now time for the UK to perhaps become the United Western Isles of Europe or some similar agreed name.

From: Richard Smithson, Chesterfield, Derbyshire.

I HAVE to fully support the views of Bob Buxton, leader of the Yorkshire Party, when he describes the devolution deal as ‘phoney devolution’ (The Yorkshire Post, January 23).

If you do the maths as I have written to you before about, £1.8bn over 30 years is not a game changer. No major infrastructure projects will be possible without still going back to the Government for the funds to make them a reality.

I feel the whole process is another tactic by the Government to delay/placate the North.

Support The Yorkshire Post and become a subscriber today. Your subscription will help us to continue to bring quality news to the people of Yorkshire. In return, you’ll see fewer ads on site, get free access to our app and receive exclusive members-only offers. Click here to subscribe.