'Dire Brexit predictions have not come true' - Yorkshire Post Letters

It is now one year since we finally left the EU and so a good time to review the progress of Brexit, although the picture has been clouded by the Covid-19 pandemic. My own opinion is that it is so far, so good.

Certainly, many of the dire predictions made by Remainers have not come true and probably never will. Unemployment has not soared, there have been no 100-mile queues of HGVs on the approaches to Dover, we have not run out of food or medicines, and we were not short of turkeys or petrol over Christmas.

Trade with the EU is sharply down but that is to be expected when you leave a protectionist cartel such as the EU. The important point is that, according to figures produced by the Office for National Statistics, imports are down much more than exports. We therefore have the opportunity to repair our manufacturing base which has been so much weakened by the flood of imports from the EU.

Amongst the benefits of Brexit, the vaccination programme against Covid-19 got off to a much quicker start than would have been the case if we had remained.

What about the famous £350m slogan on the side of the bus? That figure has been left far behind with spending on the NHS now exceeding an extra £1bn per week although admittedly that is largely due to the pandemic.

The only remaining significant problem is that of Northern Ireland which could be lost to the UK in the form of a united Ireland. I recall that a few days after the Brexit vote, a senior EU official said in public that “the price of Brexit will be Northern Ireland”. Everything said or done by the EU with regard to the province should be viewed in the light of that statement and treated with the utmost caution.

From: Richard Wilson, Chair, Leeds for Europe.

IT’S little wonder the public is turning against Brexit, with us still seeing no signs of the benefits Boris Johnson promised – but with evidence of all the downsides mounting daily.

Your report on further food supply threats caused by new post-Brexit restrictions taking effect this month was hardly alone (The Yorkshire Post, December 30).

The absence recently of some of your pro-Brexit letter-writing stalwarts, who could be relied on to deny facts and defend the indefensible, is encouraging. Maybe the “Brexit Isn’t Working” message is finally reaching Brexit’s bastions of fandom and wishful thought.