YP Letters: Don't believe the Brexit bus lies over EU

DURING the referendum, the red Brexit bus toured the country claiming that Britain paid £350m per week to the EU. This was allied to apparent promises that the money would be spent on the NHS instead.

Last week Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs informed me of my tax code for the coming year. It told me how the tax I paid in 2015-2016 had been spent. It said that my contribution to the EU budget was well under one pound per week, and less than one-tenth of one per cent of my total tax payments.

What? Of all the taxes I pay, my EU contribution is the least, and well worth it for the European Health Insurance Card alone. Not to mention the huge contribution the EU has made to flood alleviation schemes in the East Riding.

So is HMRC lying to me? Or was the Brexit bus just a big con-trick? One look at your tax code notification gives the answer.

Since the referendum, extra billions have been spent on Brexit ministries, negotiators and advisors. At the same time the NHS is struggling to contain a staffing and spending crisis of catastrophic proportions.

It’s about time the Government turned its attention to the ‘good’ of the people.

From: Graham Rawlings, Selby.

THE EU is always a convenient Aunt Sally for MPs. On June 23 last year the MP for Selby and Ainsty, Nigel Adams, had a full page advert in our local paper urging us to vote leave, partly because of “the destruction of highly skilled, well-paid jobs in our area caused by EU regulations in the power and coal industries”. These, by the way, are presumably the same regulations under which Germany is currently building 23 new coal-fired power stations.

A few weeks afterwards, on July 20, his own Government approved a Statutory Instrument for the fifth carbon budget with a 57 per cent reduction in carbon emissions, 40 per cent greater than the EU required.

The reason why Brexit won’t affect the coal and power industries is that the carbon reduction targets are primarily from the UN and not the EU at all.

So, here’s how it works if you’re an MP. Your Government introduces legislation, which has both benefits and costs. It goes far beyond what the EU has asked for. You support it. When the benefits come along in the way of cleaner air or whatever it is, you get your picture in the newspapers and claim the credit. Any downsides, perhaps involving job losses, you blame the EU. It’s all so easy.

It’s known as having your cake and eating it. I assume, after 2019 when he has taken back control, Mr Adams will begin campaigning for Britain to leave the UN, reopen mines, build more coal-fired power plants and strike trading agreements with other planets. That or admit the EU was blameless.

From: Don Burslam, Elm Road, Dewsbury Moor.

CONSIDERING the years the perennial Europhobes have had to devise a strategy or a blueprint for what they want after leaving the EU, it is clear they haven’t got a clue. All we have is a undignified scrabble from one far-flung leader to another and ad hoc deals to preserve jobs. Will President Donald Trump launch a lifeboat? I don’t think so.

The lack of control and authority is palpable, and whenever hardball negotiations start, we can have not a scrap of confidence that our side will prove a match for the Brussels brigade.

From: Jarvis Browning, Main Street, Fadmoor, York.

NOT another whinger. Both Tony Blair and John Major are behaving like moles wanting to create havoc. Sorry, you’ll have to respect that the referendum result is what it is.

If you don’t like it here, go elsewhere. We’re staying put to see a hopefully once more Great Britain.

From: B Murray, Sheffield.

THANK goodness for Tony Blair. He knows what is happening at the heart of Europe and what will happen to Britain as it leaves the European Union.

Labour goes up in flames

From: David Craggs, Goldthorpe.

WE are told that it was Nero who supposedly fiddled while Rome burned.

Well, 2,000 years later, Jeremy Corbyn appears to be doing the same while the Labour Party slowly self-destructs (The Yorkshire Post, January 25).

The time to change its leader is not after its inevitable annihilation at the next election, sending it into the wilderness for another four years of Tory rule. The time for change is surely now.

Labour did not win the Stoke Central by-election. Ukip lost it by having a candidate who many of the electorate did not trust after the Hillsborough revelations.

No pay cap for our MPs

From: Terry Palmer, South Lea Avenue, Hoyland, Barnsley.

OUR MPs are due to receive a £1,000 pay rise despite a Conservative cap on public sector pay increases. The 1.4 per cent rise is due to be introduced in April 2017, with the new salaries increasing to £76,011 from £74,962, not forgetting expenses less than two years after a 10 per cent increase was implemented.

The change comes after public sector workers’ pay was frozen in 2010 under Conservative austerity measures. Rises were then subsequently capped at one per cent a year from 2010 to 2019/20.

Now is the chance for our Yorkshire MPs, at least, to do a bit of shouting about all this is and maybe hand their obscene rise over to charity, but do not hold your breath. Hands up if anyone can remember the last time any of them spoke up, loudly on anything concerning their constituents?

Oh yes! I remember. In 2015 during general electioneering.