YP Letters: Determined to save nation from going up in flames of Brexit

SOME of your readers will be familiar with the name Jan Palach.

Palach was a 20-year-old student in Prague who deliberately burned himself to death in protest at the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact forces in order to put down “the Prague Spring”. This was in 1969 when the Russians could not tolerate the liberalism and freedom that was emerging in Czechoslovakia.

Just as Jan Palach was passionate about defending the Prague Spring, so I am passionate about seeking to preserve the UK membership of the European Union. I sometimes wish that I had the courage to do what Jan Palach did. I could self-immolate in the City Park as a signal of my profound concern at the damage that Brexit has already done – with worse to come.

But I do not have that level of courage. So I try to write a letter per week to warn us off a profoundly wrong-headed course of action.

Perhaps the fact that setting fire to myself in City Park as a beacon of protest has even entered my head might signify to your readers just how disastrous I consider current government policy on Brexit to be.

So, Editor, yet another letter. What more can I do?

From: Nick Martinek, Briarlyn Road, Huddersfield.

THE seeds of our exit from the EU were sown when Sir Con O’Neill, back in 1972, said: “Swallow the lot, and swallow it now.” His advice to capitulate to the extreme demands of Brussels is loudly copied by the Remainers today.

Unfortunately for us, the result was a botched negotiation to join the EU (the EEC as was) that has caused political and constitutional crises ever since, as well as costing us serious money. Appeasing the EU didn’t work on entry, and it’s certainly not working now on exit. Yet Theresa May’s government seems incapable of learning from history.

If Mrs May thought that the EU would be friendly, reasonable, even rational, she hasn’t been paying attention for the last 45 years. The choice is capitulation, as in 1972, or to actually leave and use the WTO trade deal.

Clearly WTO is the better option, despite some short-term difficulties. We must not remain in the EU by the back door.

From: David Quarrie, Lynden Way, Holgate, York.

SAD but true, our UK politicians are only any good at one thing – failing!