YP Letters: Building EU alliances is hard work, but it pays off for Britain

Boris Johnson and Michael Gove as they tour of the DCS Group, Stratford-upon-Avon, while on the EU referendum campaign tour.

I KNOW from personal experience that the EU is by no means perfect. For six years in the 1990s I was UK representative on one of the EU Council’s Working Groups.

One country on its own can achieve very little, however strong its arguments. The answer is not to walk away from it, but to build alliances, issue-by-issue, and to work constructively with those Member States that share our objectives and concerns – and, believe it or not, they do exist.

This requires a great deal of time, effort and careful, dogged diplomacy. It’s not easy; but it can be done.

From: Gerald Hodgson, Spennithorne, Leyburn.

AMID the plethora of disputed statistics flying about in the referendum debate, a really vital issue is getting little coverage.

The nations of Europe have been at war with each other on and off for centuries. Only in the last century, we were twice engaged in horrific wars with Germany that shredded our national wealth and robbed us of many of our finest people. I can vividly recall sitting in an Anderson shelter in the cellar of my grandparents’ house in Newcastle and hearing bombs explode in the road outside.

Since the formation of the EU and its forerunners, I believe that danger has passed and the EU can take most of the credit for this situation.

I shall certainly be voting to stay in the EU.

From: Alan Chapman, Bingley.

The EU arguments come down to this simple question: Do you want to live under European law, legislation and rules and be classed as European? Or do you want to live under British law, legislation and rules and be classed as British?

From: Geoff Sweeting, Wressle, Selby.

HOW can our Prime Minister be so disingenuous? He states that Turkey will not join the EU for years – but they don’t have to, as the European Commission is giving 72 million Turkish Muslims freedom of access to Europe, as a reward for taking back refugees from Greece.

From: AK Biggin, Director, Bradford City Football Club Ltd.

THE European Union is completely and utterly bust.

The only economic growth lies with Germany and the UK and it doesn’t take a razor sharp mind to determine where the bailouts will come from.