YP Letters: MPs' responsibility to act in the national interest on Brexit

From: Keith Alford, Canterbury Crescent, Fulwood, Sheffield.
How will Parliament address Brexit in 2019?How will Parliament address Brexit in 2019?
How will Parliament address Brexit in 2019?

BILL Carmichael complains that Leave voters like him have been demonised as knuckle-dragging racists looking back with nostalgia to the days of Empire (The Yorkshire Post, December 21).

While such broad generalisations may be unfair to many Leave supporters, some of the reasons for such perceptions are not difficult to find in the comments of many of your Brexit supporting correspondents.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Germany, one of the most democratic countries in the world, is according to the views of Brexiteers using the EU as a means to dominate Europe and avenge her defeats in two world wars. Angela Merkel comes in for particular criticism where her decision to admit refugees fleeing from a war zone is attacked as irresponsible rather than being true to Christian and European liberal democratic culture.

Opponents of the EU seem to have an unhealthy obsession with past conflicts and a simple view of history to accord with their myths of British exceptionalism. Britain did behave heroically and made sacrifices in standing up to tyranny, but with considerable support from the Empire, the United States and resistance movements within Europe itself. The war is long over and claims that ungrateful Europeans should still be thanking us for their liberation is petty-minded and not worthy of a mature country.

As we get deeper and deeper into a constitutional crisis, both the Government and Labour opposition are divided. In a representative democracy, it is the responsibility of MPs to act in the interests of the whole country and if that means electoral unpopularity, then that is the price of our democracy.

From: Nick Yates, Laverock Lane, Brighouse.

THE EU’s Jean-Claude Juncker said, and I quote: “The risks of a disorderly exit of Great Britain from the EU are obvious. It will be an absolute catastrophe. Therefore, the commission, as well as the member states, are trying to prevent this disorderly exit from the union, but it takes two to tango.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The gall of the man is incredible. For two years he has hardly paid lip service to negotiation; to use his own ballroom analogy, he hasn’t even bought a ticket to access the dance hall!

If we leave with no deal on March 29, then nothing physically changes and if there is any disruption it will be caused by Juncker and his EU hierarchy.