YP Letters: Blame Tony Blair for EU referendum

JOHN Turley (The Yorkshire Post, May 3) is mistaken as to why there was a referendum in 2016.

It was not so much people “who never accepted the result of the 1975 referendum” as former Remain supporters who had changed their minds and, critically, the antics of Tony Blair.

In 2004, he signed a European Constitutional Treaty. In 2005, fearing that treaty might cost him a General Election, he neutralised that issue by promising a referendum. After a referendum in France had rejected that treaty, EU leaders rewrote it in less frightening language, thus enabling Mr Blair to sidestep his promise.

New Conservative leader, David Cameron, repeatedly teased Messrs. Blair and Brown for failing to keep that promise. He, in turn, promised that he would hold a referendum after he took power. Once this new Treaty had been ratified by all EU states, it was too late to have a referendum on it. This did not stop David Cameron’s critics from attacking him.

Finally he decided to silence these critics by re-negotiating our EU membership and holding a referendum on what he had achieved. That is why we had a referendum in 2016. If Mr Blair had not signed that Constitutional Treaty, we should not be leaving EU.

From: Stephen Bennett, Hambalt Road, London.

REGARDING Bill Carmichael’s column (The Yorkshire Post, May 4), Brexit is a warning to the world. The choice: A party that caused the Windrush scandal and the Grenfell Tower scandal or a party with a leader who hates progress and human rights.

The only sane party is the Liberal Democrats and the only mature, sensible leader is Vince Cable. The electorate are afraid to vote for the Lib Dems because they believe that it is a wasted vote. The wasted votes are for the Tories and Labour, none other.

Unlike other Remainers in this country, I could not vote for any party that supports a bogus sham referendum that mocks democracy 100 per cent.

From: Thomas W Jefferson, Batty Lane, Howden.

BRIAN D Black (The Yorkshire Post, May 5) splits hairs by saying that because only 37 per cent of those eligible voted to Leave then only “some of the British voted for Brexit”. By the same token, we should have left the then EEC after the referendum in 1975 as only “some” (43 per cent) voted to remain.