No Deal Brexit does not have electoral mandate – Yorkshire Post Letters

PHYLLIS Capstick (The Yorkshire Post, December 16) writes to state that she did not vote to leave the EU with any deal.

However, this is not how Brexit was sold during the referendum campaign, and despite being challenged on several occasions, neither she nor others have ever been able to name a single leading Brexiteer politician was advocating leaving the EU on this basis at the time.

On the contrary, most, including even Nigel Farage at one point, were advocating a Norwegian or Swiss-type arrangment with the EU, retaining membership of the Single Market and/or the Customs Union, and any deal Boris Johnson manages will be significantly harder than any of these options.

No Deal only became a favoured option among Brexiteers after Vote Leave had secured their narrow majority in the referendum.

What should have happened was two referendums, firstly an initial non-binding referendum on the principle of leaving the EU, and assuming that Leave won, the government would then negotiate our terms of leaving the EU, followed by a second binding referendum asking whether we wanted to leave the EU on these terms, remain in the EU, or leave without a deal.

From: Gareth Robson, Kent House Road, Beckenham.

WITH his roots in both the Labour and Tory parties, and in both Yorkshire and Lancashire, Sir Bernard Ingham might be expected to be rather more ambivalent about the EU (The Yorkshire Post, December 16). Instead, a diatribe.

He calls the EU a “crumbling, divided... edifice” – human existence is a crumbling, divided edifice but we don’t abandon it; we strive to defend it.

The EU is not seeking revenge; the UK thought it could have its cake and eat it by seeking to snooker the world’s second-largest trade bloc.

The game’s up, the snooker defeated, the trade bloc hasn’t caved in, and it looks as though someone left the cake out in the rain. Sir Bernard signals his desperation by attacking Scotland and Wales for talking more and more boldly of leaving England out in the cold and rejoining the EU. He is right on this, at least, but when will he ever learn not to come across as a blustering and jingoistic fool?

From: Martin McFadden, Leeds.

WHEN the UK government agreed ‘‘Let the public vote’’ the criteria was Leave or Remain  – there was no mention of a deal. 

Four years later, they are still arguing the toss, thanks to Theresa May, a Remainer at heart, dithering and bowing to the EU for three years. Some people forget (or choose to ignore) the fact that the EU, while raking in untold billions, want us to dance to their tune with any deal! 

From: James Buick, Northallerton.

I’VE no time for politicians like Ed Miliband complaining about a No Deal Brexit – it’s their fault for not supporting Theresa May’s compromise deal when they had a chance to do so.

Boris Johnson said it would be a failure of political leadership if he did not get a trade deal with the EU – another promise about to be broken.

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