Why are we depriving our grandchildren the chance to move around Europe? - Yorkshire Post Letters

Jack Gooch, Letters, October 22, suggests that freedom of movement served simply to import cheap labour in order for business to keep costs down.

There may well be some truth to that given that the UK has labour laws which are much laxer than more or less anywhere else in Europe.

Other countries seem to manage - hundreds of thousands of workers from Eastern Europe work in competitor countries like France and Germany and have to abide by the stricter legislation which applies.

Hence in France workers have to be employed on French conditions and not the possibly easier conditions of those of the home country. In neither country is freedom of movement seen as a major hindrance to developing local labour supply. Few people in England seem concerned that the ending of freedom of movement made it very difficult for young people, many of whom have worked hard at foreign languages, to live, work, study and even travel freely in Europe.

I accept that as a couple in our sixties with a reasonable income we still can and that the only difference from before Brexit is an obligatory application for residency.

However, my grandchildren have lost what is a potentially life-enhancing opportunity. Hence it's actually illegal now in France for British youngsters to be employed casually as grape-pickers. I'm not saying that it doesn't still happen but were there to be an accident the French farmer risks jail as UK casual workers are uninsured.

I recently chatted with an Italian-born pizza parlour owner who agreed how sad it is that his young nephews and nieces can no longer come here and gain experience of our language and our culture.

Of course young people who can obtain Irish or other EU passports still enjoy their rights as EU citizens and that applies even to the most diehard fanatical Brexit-supporting Ulster Unionist.

It doesn't apply to professional footballers either who uniquely transfer around Europe as if nothing has changed.

But the hard-working linguist uninterested in kicking a ball can no longer put her Spanish language skills to use so easily. For that matter The Beatles could never have performed in Hamburg. And Brexit has put paid to the German Market in Leeds.

I couldn't believe it when the Tories with tacit Labour support casually and callously removed European rights from my grandchildren and for that reason alone I will be unable to support Labour in the future.

No one has ever justified our self-imposed social cultural and linguistic isolation.

Does Jack Gooch really think that a lad from Lille or a lass from Dortmund working for a couple of years in a bar in Leeds to learn English is a threat to the wealth of the British working class and a risk to national identity?

Or is it that he simply doesn't like hearing Polish spoken in the park? If so perhaps he can justify this nonsense.