Remain parties still won more votes than Tories and Brexit Party at the election – Yorkshire Post Letters

From: John Cole, Oakroyd Terrace, Baildon, Shipley.
Boris Johnson is pressing ahead with Brexit, even though Remian-inclined parties secured more votes in the election.Boris Johnson is pressing ahead with Brexit, even though Remian-inclined parties secured more votes in the election.
Boris Johnson is pressing ahead with Brexit, even though Remian-inclined parties secured more votes in the election.

THE Conservative Party won 365 seats, giving them a Commons majority of 80. This has been described by some (either ignorant of or careless about the truth) as confirming the 2016 referendum result – that we should leave the EU.

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The facts are that in terms of share of the popular vote “Leave” parties polled 47 per cent whilst parties in favour of “Remain” polled 53 per cent (Tom Richmond, The Yorkshire Post, December 14).

Boris Johnson delivered milk in Rawdon on the eve of the election.Boris Johnson delivered milk in Rawdon on the eve of the election.
Boris Johnson delivered milk in Rawdon on the eve of the election.

These statistics are remarkably in line with the last 75 opinion polls on Brexit – all have shown a similar lead for Remain.The disconnect in the above is explained by the inequities of our “first past the post” electoral system that awarded the Conservatives 56 per cent of the Commons seats on 44 per cent of the vote.

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One thing is clear. With his working majority of 80, Boris Johnson must now own all that emerges from his government. The responsibility is his.

Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson.Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson.
Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson.

And if, as I strongly suspect, Brexit proves to be a national disaster, I shall have carte blanche to send in a series of “I told you so” letters.

From: Nick Martinek, Briarlyn Road, Huddersfield.

THE Conservatives hardly deserved to win under Boris Johnson. But Labour and the Lib Dems certainly deserved to 
lose.

The Leave blockers have now received their just deserts. The Lib Dems, being neither liberal nor democratic, brazenly aimed to discard our legal vote for independence.

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Meanwhile, Labour’s contempt for us is shown by Emily Thornberry allegedly sneering that Leave voters are “stupid” (The Yorkshire Post, December 16).Then we have the Conservatives who gained a massive majority on the pretence that their new “Boris” Withdrawal Agreement is “Brexit”.

It isn’t, because it was never designed to be. The Boris WA is just an alternative treaty to the existing EU treaties (TEU and TFEU). It keeps us firmly under EU control, until we leave in a year’s time at the earliest.

So we will need to keep a very close watch on Boris Johnson and the new local Tory MPs. They, and we, know what we voted for – complete separation.

The EU must not control our fish, money, courts, laws, borders, procurement, army, trade, or any part of the UK state. There can be no repetition of Theresa May’s betrayals. Or the Tory party will end up where Labour is.

From: ME Wright, Harrogate.

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I FIND myself in the improbable state of feeling a crumb or two of sympathy for Boris Johnson (The Yorkshire Post, December 14).

His political future is now in pawn to we natives of his “Here be dragons” land.

For one who spent his formative years, having social and educational contact with no-one but “the right sort of people”, this can’t be easy.

Does he realise that dragons, both legendary and political, if displeased, are prone to breathing fire in one way or another?Will he feel the need to spend time here?

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If so, could I ask him please to spare us the gilet jaune and pork pie condescension of his old Etonian predecessor?

From: A J A Smith, Cowling.

WELL done the British people, my faith in ‘the wisdom of the crowd’ has been restored.

The Remainers, Revokers, Remoaners, Blockers and Stoppers who zealously sought to frustrate the will of the people to be a self-governing nation state once more have been trounced twice in one year.

Yes, we are a step closer to leaving the EU, but let us not get carried away with Boris Johnson’s ‘Let’s get Brexit done’ fanfare declaring that January 31, 2020, will be Brexit Day. Oh no it’s not!

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It may be the day we lose all say in the EU but we continue to be subservient to EU laws and decrees as well as paying our membership fee of £1bn per month. That isn’t Brexit Day – that’s more like All Fools Day!

If we are to achieve the Brexit we voted for and not ‘Brexit in name only’, then Johnson and his team will need their toes continuously held to the fire.

From: Michael Ellison, Knapping Hill, Harrogate.

WHILE studying the local results of the 2019 General Election, I noticed that Jason McCartney has been re-elected as MP for Colne Valley – a seat that the Conservatives lost in 2017 
(The Yorkshire Post, December 14).

I am wondering how many other of the recent ‘net gains’ of 47 seats made by the Tories, could be categorised as ‘regains’ from those ‘lost’ at the 2017 election.

From: Colin S Heaton, Kirkburton.

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METAMORPHOSIS: a change of the form or nature of a thing or person into something completely different.

BBC bias has the same 
effect, on those who depend on them for part, or all of their income.

Whatever happened to the amusing character, Ian Hislop? The cheeky, amusing chappie whose appearances on TV, we chiefly enjoyed?

Now he is demonstrably an ignorant, biased BBC lackey who laughs at his own jokes.

From: Henry Cobden, Ilkley.

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SO the Shadow Transport Secretary, Andy McDonald, blames BBC bias for Labour’s election defeat. What planet is he living on? He’s clearly clutching at straws when you compare the favourable coverage of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell to the snideness shown towards Boris Johnson.

From: Thomas Reed, Harrogate.

UNLESS a reasoned MP like Lisa Nandy, steeped in the North, becomes Labour leader, the party will be bereft of credibility and will only have itself to

blame if its incompetence leads to Boris Johnson forcing through a hard Brexit.