YP Letters: Sir Patrick Stewart's starry-eyed view of Brexit and our relations with Europe

I READ with dismay the article by Sir Patrick Stewart (The Yorkshire Post, May 1) concerning the proposed “People’s Vote” on the Brexit deal. Somehow he applauds the decision in 1973 to join the EEC as the saviour of our country’s economic health.

If we had not joined the EEC, we would still have been trading with European countries, even if it meant doing so under WTO rules. What he failed to mention was that we were then prevented from negotiating trade deals with other countries, including those in our very own Commonwealth.

As for our economic troubles after the war, he fails to blame the all-powerful trade unions, many of which held our industries to ransom. It was Margaret Thatcher who helped to put the unions in their place and encourage private enterprises so that they could start creating wealth.

As for a curb on wage increases, this was more a way of reducing our public debt after the extravagances of previous Labour governments than any uncertainty caused by Brexit.

Many Remainers, including Sir Patrick, have inferred that the EEC and its successors were instrumental in preserving peace in Western Europe. This should be attributed more to Nato. So far, EU bureaucrats, in their amateurish actions on the international front, have made a pig’s ear of their interventions in eastern Europe and increased the chances of escalating hostilities with Russia.

How can Sir Patrick attribute the increasing outward-looking view young Europeans to a direct result of the EU? Young people are more outward-looking everywhere as a result of better education, increased wealth, a revolution in communications and more opportunities.

So Sir Patrick regards himself as a democrat, which is probably fair. But nowhere does he mention that the EU is hardly democratic, governed by non-elected bureaucrats who aspire to create a European superstate in which our democratic involvement would be virtually non-existent. Perhaps he would like to supply our politicians with rubber stamps instead!

From: Thomas W Jefferson, Batty Lane, Howden.

WHILE indulging in a contentious historical perspective, Sir Patrick Stewart, like other Remainers, ducks the question that embarrassed him on The Andrew Marr Show recently. What happens if the electorate reject a negotiated Brexit deal? It’s time for them to answer the question.