How Brexit has brought us together by tearing us apart – Yorkshire Post letters

ON a rather miserable Monday morning, I’ve just read Jayne Dowle’s insightful comments on budget cuts and needy families (The Yorkshire Post, April 8). It’s a disgraceful, but not surprising, state of affairs. In case some readers think otherwise, aspects of it are not unknown in leafy, prosperous Harrogate.

Jayne Dowle: the view from Barnsley as needy families pushed into abyss

Like Jayne, I’m not a massive fan of “over interventionist” policies; but without intervention and help of some kind, what does the future hold for the family and youngsters she describes? Very possibly something much more malign than a supermarket.

Brexit has paradoxically brought us together, by tearing us apart. Whatever the outcome may be, dare we assume that “they” – blue, red, yellow or whatever – have got the message that they must venture purposefully outside their Westminster bubble?

Over the last 10 years, we’ve been assured of “level playing fields”; “one nation”; “we’re all in this together”. “Transparency” completes the set and don’t we need much more of that? To what extent did “they” enjoy the fruits of Chancellor Philip Hammond’s “little extras” donation to state schools? Unless “they” start to live in the real world and respond appropriately, Jayne will be telling us this sorry story many times more.

From: Ian Richardson, Railway Street, Beverley.

ABOUT the only consistent message we hear nowadays from a disintegrating Conservative party is to repeatedly label that Jeremy Corbyn as a Marxist who endangers our democracy.

This political opportunism falls on one fundamental point: Corbyn is not a Marxist. He is, like millions of us, a democratic socialist who believes in social justice for all. That is no more a danger to UK democracy than the fallacy that the EU has stolen our power.

What really endangers our democracy is for this Government to merely pay lip service to reducing our grotesque levels of poverty.

As it happens, I am not a particular supporter of Corbyn. His parliamentary skills are lamentable and his stance on Brexit and anti-Semitism have both been highly suspect, but his genuine desire for a fairer society is beyond doubt. To loosely label him with derogatory political terms is indicative of his opponents’ weaknesses, not his.

From: Henry Cobden, Ilkley.

TOM Richmond’s column on the NHS ward being the real Brexit front line is required reading (The Yorkshire Post, April 4) for all MPs.