Call for closer ties with the European Union is the right one - Yorkshire Post Letters
From: Richard Wilson, Chair, Leeds for Europe, Roundhay, Leeds.
I have observed over the years your valiant efforts in your Comment columns to stay balanced on the topic of Brexit - clearly bending over backwards to stay on the fence regarding our departure from the European Union.
Sometimes those columns made painful reading. And I imagine they’ve been increasingly difficult to write, what with Brexit’s harms mounting and none of the promised benefits emerging.
So, January 31’s “Review of post-Brexit situation is needed” piece was welcome and refreshing.
You are not quite ready to join the majority of us who’d like to rejoin the EU; it’s currently 57 per cent Rejoin versus 43 per cent Stay Out on the ‘What UK Thinks’ website.
But your call for “a dispassionate review of where Brexit has left us” and acknowledgement that “if a closer relationship with the EU helps boost the economy, then that would be welcome” is a step in the right direction.
Just prepare, though, for “Brexit betrayal” accusations from national rags, reactionary TV outlets…or any of your handful of regular letter writers who still attempt to claim that Brexit has in any way been a success.
A couple of years ago, Leeds for Europe organised a petition calling for a public inquiry into Brexit “independent …free from ideology and the opinions of vested interests”. It secured an MPs’ debate that can still be viewed on Parliament’s website.
On the site now is a further petition calling for us to rejoin the EU. It wasn’t initiated by Leeds for Europe, but we very much support its goal.
Please sign it if you do, too. At the time of writing, it has secured 80,000 of the 100,000 signatures required for it to be considered for debate by MPs.
As you note in your Comment piece, “politicians on both sides of the divide” try to avoid Brexit - “scared to even broach the subject”. Our country can’t afford such fear and neglect any longer.