Don’t brand Remainers as Luddites; we’re Brexit freedom fighters – Yorkshire Post Letters

JACK Gooch is simply wrong to suggest Remainers are Luddites (The Yorkshire Post, March 11).

Ukrainian refugees deserve better than Boris Johnson and Priti Patel’s insincerity – Yorkshire Post Letters

Luddites were against progress and technology so it is a much more fitting label of Brexiteers, people who want to wreck the EU – the best and most progressive trading and cultural partnership ever known.

‘Freedom Fighters’ is a better label for Remainers. Freedom of movement of goods and people within the world’s largest trading bloc. Freedom from the friction of incompatible standards. Freedom from the lies, foreign interests and Russian money which promoted Brexit and which characterise this Brexit Tory government.

From: ME Wright, Harrogate.

I’M one of the alleged “few...still fighting the Brexit war” (The Yorkshire Post, March 11).

Perhaps it’s time to remember that, for 50 years, we played a leading role in helping to forge the “United States of Europe” which was advocated by Boris Johnson’s hero Winston Churchill. This vision encompassed far more than merely obsessing about deals, numbers and bottom lines.

We now find ourselves witnessing the horrors of Ukraine, whilst infected by the worst aspects of a Ukip island mentality. We are desperately trying to square the circle of proclaiming our innate decency whilst making it as difficult as possible for foreigners to enter.

EU Ireland is demonstrating the kindness and generosity which we like to kid ourselves is somehow very British. When viewed from the future perspectives of our children and grandchildren, who are really the 21st century Luddites?

From: Sally Cieslik, Leeds

DURING the build up to the EU referendum in 2016, discussions revolved largely around trade and immigration – or more accurately the desire to stop it.

There was some, but less, talk of the impact of leaving the EU on peace and stability – perhaps we had become complacent after almost three quarters of a century without large scale war close to home and having taken for granted years of dialogue and co-operation with our European colleagues.

Now the tables have turned, we are out of the EU, our trade streams are mainly clunky, we have an inhumane immigration policy and, shockingly and suddenly, European peace and stability are literally under attack.

From: Colin S Moore, York.

EVIDENCE of close links between Russia, a now hostile power, and British politicians must be exposed. Mike Baldwin asks all the right questions about why these links have been covered up (The Yorkshire Post, March 11). Russia tries to influence poltics abroad. The Mueller report found evidence how Russians hacked Hillary Clinton’s email accounts to help the Donald Trump Presidential campaign.

Though it did not find the Trump campaign actively colluded with Russia, his campaigners were happy to use Russian provided information. Russians saw Trump as an unscrupulous egotist with no grasp of detail and a liking for autocrats. Just the man to have in the White House as their own “Manchurian candidate”.

There are questions too about possible European funding for the British Brexit campaign. Far more important than ‘partygate’, this corruption of British politics by Russian money needs investigation – and soon.

From: Simon Smith, Bradford.

TWO articles last Friday (The Yorkshire Post, March 11) caught my eye.

Professor Juergen Maier, vice-chair of Northern Powerhouse Partnership, says “Net Zero is good for jobs, good for business and good for consumers – anyone who says otherwise is economically illiterate”.

Bill Carmichael, in his column, disagrees: “The biggest and most damaging delusion was chasing the mirage of ‘Net Zero’... at a time when Russian forces are bombing maternity hospitals.”

I say to them both: can we show a little more respect for those we disagree with? Arguments between the deluded and the economically illiterate tend not to end well.

From: Peter Rickaby, West Park, Selby.

SHADOW Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, condemns the Government refugee response as “shambolic”. This is the same politician who, at the time of the Syrian refugee crisis, courted public acclaim for her generous desire to offer her home to a family in need.

Then, as is the trait of many politicians, she failed to fulfil the promise. Before pontificating further perhaps a reflection on the word “hypocrite” would not go amiss from the Pontefract MP.

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