Country betrayed and sold off to foreign rivals by our MPs

WHEN reading the letters page of the Yorkshire Post recently I was reminded of a Morecambe & Wise show, the one in which Eric’s piano playing was criticised by star guest André Previn which led to Eric grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and saying “I am playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order”.

The letter by William Snowden (Yorkshire Post, June 1) regarding his interpretation of competition brought this to mind but instead of “notes” we can substitute “words”. Mr Snowden states that “competition is the essence of free and fair trade” and my views on the reasons for some of Britain’s major industries being destroyed by European rulings are somewhat ludicrous. Instead of saying that “competition is the essence of free and fair trade”, shouldn’t the order of the words be altered to read “fair competition is the essence of free trade”? When Edward Heath supposedly negotiated Britain’s entry into the then European Common Market in 1972, our fishing industry was uppermost in the minds of our so-called European partners; could they somehow persuade Edward Heath to share this with them as a sop for agreeing to allowing Britain to join their club. Don’t you believe this happened, Mr Snowden?

Well, they must have been overwhelmed at the ease with which their wishes were granted as they didn’t have to work up a sweat to achieve their desire.

Edward Heath gave our fishing industry away as easy as a handshake. Buoyed by this success their confidence rose sharply; what measures could they introduce to secure Britain’s out-of-reach trade? Is anyone naive enough to believe this didn’t happen?

European competition rules were now introduced to open up our industries to allow European firms to compete – not fair competition, but competition which would see very profitable trade obtained.

The dairy industry, unique 
and envied throughout the
world, was seen as very 
desirable, so European rulings said that the Milk Marketing Board, against which they could not hope to compete, was a monopoly, so it had to go, and our dopey politicians rolled over.

The result is that thousands of dairy farmers have left the industry, Britain now imports milk from Europe, Arla is a Danish dairy company responsible for much of the dairy industry and, surprise, surprise, the fresh daily “pinta” is now sold by supermarkets with a nine-day use-by-date.

But what about Britain’s other unique and similarly envied industry, our postal industry? The GPO delivered mail to every part of the UK at the same price, it didn’t matter how remote, this was their promise and undertaking. No competitor could possibly match this commitment but Europe decided it wanted to compete for just one part of the business, the easy part. European firms didn’t want the remote areas, the out of the way hamlets.

Oh no, they only wanted to compete in the more heavily populated ones, their profits from these areas were not needed to finance delivery to unprofitable regions as the GPO had to do, so you don’t have to be an Einstein to see how they can easily undercut the GPO and obtain business totally unfairly. And we accepted this and left the GPO 
to flounder.

And our coal industry? The damage this does to the environment means targets 
must be set by Europe to restrict CO2 emissions which result from its burning.

Strange, therefore that Germany is investing in Brown lignite coal – the dirtiest fuel known – to fill their energy shortfall. If, however, Britain’s huge coal industry could be closed down this would pave the way for Europe to sell us thousands of near useless wind turbines, with electricity from Europe at a price which Europe could dictate.

Much of the huge deficit in Britain’s balance of payments with Europe is because Europe has found that Britain will allow their businesses to be so easily taken over. Britain’s MPs have no real appetite to engage in meaningful trade negotiations with them as this is too much 
like hard work.

It seems very evident that our MPs prefer an easy life, a hearty handshake, a pat on the back, a claim that they are jolly fine people and extremely good Europeans and everyone can go home happy. Our European allies return to their offices in the knowledge they’ve won another trade round.

Some people, even today, cannot believe this happens.