YP Letters: EU '˜red tape' gives us vital protections

AS a retired farmer, one of the big gripes about the EU regards bureaucracy and regulations.

These regulations are necessary to keep us safe whether it be in our cars, our homes, or the food we eat and are a small price to pay for that safety and to stop us being ripped off.

I am firmly of the belief that if Yorkshire was governed as a region of the EU, we would be far better treated than we are at the present time.

From: Raymond Shaw, Hullen Edge Road, Elland.

DAVID Cameron states our food will go up if we leave the EU. Our food today is dirt cheap, on average around 30 to 40 times 1939 prices. In August 1939 I bought wheat from Layfield Farm, Aberford at £5 per tonne, this last month market price has been £100 per tonne. Milk is a similar ratio.

The new hourly working minimum wage is now more than treble the weekly pre-war figure. Milk is generally below production cost, our pig industry is no more than breaking even. Cost of food is now at a historic low proportion of income.

A reduction in value of sterling would certainly help our exports as well as encouraging people to buy British.

From: Francis Dawson, Hartwith, Harrogate.

THE scare tactics against Brexit have been blown out of all proportion. On the proviso that we keep the pound out of the euro, the pound will initially devalue, stimulating exports, reducing imports, from which we will be an independent country, enabling us to write our own laws on finance, environment, NHS, immigration, etc.

The answer is simple – let us maintain our total sovereignty.

From: David H Rhodes, Keble Park North, Bishopthorpe, York.

POLITICALLY, nobody really likes the British. So in the forthcoming EU referendum we should remember King Henry V and stiffen up the sinews and cry God for Harry, England and St George.

From: Tony Walters, Edenthorpe, Doncaster.

SHOULD we stay or should we go? Most people will have decided by now. The undecided will turn to the experts.

I remember the Millennium when the experts told us that planes would fall out of the sky at midnight. What happened? Things stayed the same. I will be voting to leave.

From: Stuart Sheard, Birstall.

I UNDERSTAND that there is doubt about the future of Gibraltar if Britain leaves the disaster named the EU. The solution is simple. If Brexit wins, then holidays in Spain should be banned or discouraged by the British Government. That should ensure the Spanish government thinks very carefully.

From: Michael Meadowcroft, Former Liberal MP, Waterloo Lane, Leeds.

SIR Bernard Ingham takes the risk of summoning up the spirit of Margaret Thatcher to assert that her decision would have been to back Brexit (The Yorkshire Post, May 25).

I would not be too sure of her position, after all she was of that generation that knew only too well how Europe had been ravaged in two world wars.

From: John Senior, Birchfield Grove, Skelmanthorpe.

ONE fact that I do believe is correct is that the percentage of our exports that go to the EU is considerably greater than the percentage of the EU’s exports to the UK. Given this, which side do you think will have the better hand in negotiations for a trade treaty should we vote to leave?

From: Mervyn Jackson, Belper, Derbyshire.

BY June 23, David Cameron will say the sky will fall in if we vote for Brexit. Yet this is the man who promised a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. One can only assume that his volte-face has come about by promises made by Angela Merkel.

From: D Wood, Howden.

THE EU is currently dominated by the Germans who run it for Germany’s benefit.

From: D Fothergill, Wakefield.

IF the British people do not wake-up by June 23, they will be rudely aroused from their slumber by the rumble of an army of occupation, sometime in the not too distant future. And guess who will be in charge?

From: Martin Fletcher, Flanders Court, Thorpe Hesley.

SO our devious PM thinks we can all come together after the referendum, does he? Regardless of the outcome, politically he is a dead man walking. If we stay in, a lot more people will vote Ukip.

From: Peter Wood, Doncaster.

UNLIKE David Blunkett (The Yorkshire Post, May 26), I voted to stay in the European Union in 1975. Given the way the EU has evolved, I think it is now time for us to leave. The EU bureaucracy has become so bloated that it is now incapable of change.

From: JB Stirke, Newton-le-Willows, Bedale.

REGARDING David Cameron’s good intentions to reform the EU. I am reminded of the famous Frenchman’s retort regarding Britain’s entry in the first place: “Non! Non! Non!” What has changed?

From: RS Pearson, Haxby, York.

LET us do a Leicester City and return to the top of the league, governed from Westminster and not Brussels.

From: Dennis Hodgson, Camblesforth, Selby.

I HAVE read John Appleyard’s letter regarding the European Investment Bank forwarding £56m to provide new schools etc. He did not point out that this amount represents one day of the money which Britain gives into Europe.