YP Letters: Brexit '“ Let's get it done without the bluster

WELL thank goodness Parliament has recessed. Maybe now the Brexit negotiations can move forward without bluster and party politics. Let the civil servants get on with the actual negotiations and documentation.

Hopefully some of the Parliamentary press will also take a break from promoting non-stories. For a start what’s the hoo-ha about a border between Eire and the UK?

There used to be an agreement of sorts on a border in much more difficult times (eg terrorism) before we joined the EU. The reduction in value of sterling is already making EU citizens think twice about working here. This is being blamed on Brexit but it might easily be that the pound has slipped because no one thinks we have a Government fit to govern or an Opposition fit to oppose.

From: Mr A Davies, Augusta Park, Grimsby.

BERNARD Ingham (The Yorkshire Post, July 26) asks what is the point of MPs if they are not masters in their own House. He might then tell us why we had a referendum. MPs, in the Burkean tradition, are elected representatives who owe their voters their judgement, no more, no less. They are not mandated delegates.

He then goes on to tell us that the EU we have today is not the one for which we voted in 1975. Eurosceptics can have no excuses for not finding out.

The cornerstone of what the EU now is is the Treaty of Rome. The Treaty makes it abdundantly plain that the intention was full political union. It is dishonest to pretend otherwise.

From: Mr J Penn, Holcroft Garth, Hedon, Hull.

AS we witness our leaving of the EU, we have to consider what happens next?

The USA was created by European countries, who were illegal immigrants on that continent! Will we be taken over by the Americans and become their pet dog in Europe?

President Trump could then be able to play golf in Scotland! He will, of course, be our President.

From: Thomas W Jefferson, Batty Lane, Howden, Goole.

RECENTLY, your “Brexit-denier” correspondents have felt winds rising; seen storm clouds gathering and sensed tides turning, which they interpret as omens of Brexit derailment.

They had better be careful what they wish for, as otherwise they may hear the howl of the hurricane whipped up by the wrath of the Brexiteers, or even worse, a plague in the form of the “Return of the Farage”, which surely nobody wants, least of all Nigel himself.

From: John Irving Clarke, Sandal Cliff, Sandal, Wakefield.

THE surge in popularity for the Labour Party during the spring election campaign was not fuelled by the “sweetly naïve optimism of younger voters” as David Behrens patronisingly suggests (The Yorkshire Post, July 29), but by an electorate perceiving that a constructive alternative was at last being offered to the soul-numbing policies of austerity.

Voters also opted for a more dignified approach to politics thereby rejecting the type of snide twaddle peddled by Mr Behrens.

From: John Appleyard, Firthcliffe Parade, Liversedge.

THE ROLLING Stones’ Sir Mick Jagger complains that Brexit will make the UK a tax haven for the rich which is a bit of a cheek given that he’s been a tax exile for over 40 years!

He’s only allowed to spend a few months a year in the UK, a situation that has existed since the Stones recorded their album Exile on Main Street in France in 1972.

Error fuelled their losses

From: Nick Martinek, Briarlyn Road, Huddersfield.

IT has been wisely said that political parties lose elections; they do not win them. The widespread feeling that Jeremy Corbyn cannot be trusted has been borne out by his election promise to pay off student debt, followed by a rapid denial after the vote. As cynical political bribes go this was a peach, but only the naïve young, and Labour’s core vote fell for it, so he got his way and lost.

Then the Tories, apparently equally keen to lose the election, tried to introduce numerous unpopular or irrelevant policies rather than concentrating on the mandate they already had – to leave the EU. Determined to emulate their election losing streak in government, they now roll out Michael Gove’s truly bonkers ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2040.

No one in Mr Gove’s ministry seems to have realised the enormous economic consequences. The UK will need a expansion of our electricity generation capacity on a scale we have never managed in the past. Nuclear, like Hinckley Point C, cannot be built fast enough, so that means new coal and gas-fired generators because wind turbines are too intermittent to rely on.

On top of almost doubling our existing (inadequate) generation capacity, the grid itself will have to be expanded and rebuilt. In addition, barring the roads, almost the entire road transport sector and all its energy infrastructure will have to be replaced in 23 years. It’s just not feasible. And a realistic cost must be in excess of £600bn. It makes leaving the EU without a deal a piece of cake.

From: Tim Mickleburgh, Boulevard Avenue, Grimsby.

I SEE nothing wrong in a gradual move from petrol and diesel cars to those operated electronically. And from experience I know that technologies develop at a fast rate, helping the price to come down rapidly.

The calculators one can pick up in a pound shop do far more than those priced at £15 in the mid 1970s.

Nevertheless changing how cars operate will do nothing for road congestion. And that is the real problem if we don’t want even more of Britain to be concreted over.