YP Letters: Distorting the facts in battle to sway minds over Brexit

DICK Lindley (The Yorkshire Post, February 12) chooses to deliberately distort the facts when he states the Donald Tusk in his recent speech, was referring to the 17.4 million that voted to leave the EU.

Donald Tusk in fact never mentioned those who voted Leave, and was referring only to the politicians who promoted Brexit, but lacked any credible plan as to what our future relationship should look like.

Although the language he used was completely inappropriate, the gist of his argument was in fact correct. Furthermore before and during the referendum campaign, there were no consistent messages from the leading Brexiteer politicians, some favouring a Norwegian or Swiss-style arrangement with the EU, including retaining membership of the Single Market and/or Customs Union, others thought that we should leave both.

It was only after their unexpected victory that most started singing from the same hymn sheet then claiming that the electorate had in fact voted to leave both. Many now want to go further, and are advocating no deal (I don’t recall this being written on the side of any red bus), but whatever the Brexit flavour of the month, they will invariably claim that this was what people voted for, and that they knew exactly what they were voting for.

From: Ken Cooke, Ilkley.

YOUR correspondents Dick Lindley and Andrew Mercer (The Yorkshire Post, February 12) chose to selectively hear what Donald Tusk said. He specifically referred only to those Brexit leaders who promoted Leave “without even a sketch of a plan of how to do it safely”

Two years on and endless wrangling only proves him right. The Brexit leaders still have absolutely no base of a plan beyond ‘having our cake and eating it’: retain the benefits of the EU without being members and ‘play away’ with the rest of the world. A recipe for smuggling and tax escapes for the wealthy. Tusk and Guy Verhofstadt are admirers of Britain and good friends to us. Over 16 million Remainers recognise Tusk’s frustration and commend him for speaking the truth.

From: Henry Cobden, Ilkley.

I’M enjoying the regular updates on the racehorse Brexitmeansbrexit (Tom Richmond, The Yorkshire Post, February 9). Now the horse is close to getting its nose in front, let’s hope its training is not entrusted to Jeremy Corbyn.