YP Letters: Arguments to cancel Brexit have no substance

From: Gordon Lawrence, Sheffield.
Arguments continue over Brexit.Arguments continue over Brexit.
Arguments continue over Brexit.

I CANNOT see any good reason, having read Richard Wilson’s article (The Yorkshire Post, September 3), of wanting to cancel Brexit and remain in the tenacious clutches of Brussels.

Most of his arguments are merely assertions without substance. He cites the excruciating negotiations that seem to get nowhere but without referring to the significant role that the militant activism of organisations such as Mr Wilson’s own “Leeds for Europe” have played in buttressing EU resistance – resembling to my mind a guerrilla movement in inhibiting any coherent progress.

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Mr Wilson argues that the regional neglect of Yorkshire is down to the political concentration on Brexit. I find this argument risible. He must have been on an extensive tour of Mars during the last 40-odd years. We joined the EU in 1972/3 and I can’t see in all those years much progress on this chronic issue. In fact, London is more dominant than ever. And our membership, in fact, shifted the centre of gravity in political power towards Brussels and the Continent reducing Yorkshire’s potential by pushing it more onto the periphery.

What may be camouflaged in all this debate is the central assumption behind the Remain lobbyist’s argument that the EU is some sort of static wonderland that we should cling to regardless. But, I for one, can hear the woodworm gnawing away at this “wonderland’s” timbers as the rebellious far right gain a greater foothold in many EU countries and the Mediterranean states’ economies struggle to survive under the harsh regime of the ill-fitting Euro – all exacerbated by Brussels ideological hierarchy’s inability to change and adapt.

From: John Turley, Dronfield Woodhouse.

Brexiteers would soon have been demanding another referendum if it had been a narrow victory for Remain. Darren Joseph (The Yorkshire Post, September 6) need not wonder what would have happened if Remain had won the referendum by 52 to 48 per cent, Nigel Farage and other Brexiteer politicians made it quite clear that they would have considered a narrow victory for Remain to be unfinished business.

The only question was when, not if they would push for another referendum to take place, Dominic Raab was actually one of the more cautious Brexiteers when he suggested that such a vote should be put off to around the then-expected time of the next general election in 2020.