YP Letters: Swedes take stand against EU dream

I AM sure that all your readers will by now be aware of the stunning victory for the Eurosceptics in Sweden. The Swedish people have just voted by a very large majority to retain the Kroner and to reject the ruling party’s desire to adopt the Euro.

The repercussions of this rejection for the Europhiles in Brussels will have far-reaching consequences regarding the fulfilment of their dream, which is, as we all know, a United States of Europe, stretching from the Arctic to the Mediterranean and from the Atlantic to the Urals, and I am delighted.

Congratulations to our Swedish friends and a big thank-you from the people of Yorkshire.

From: David Downs, Sandal, Wakefield.

HOW could any person with a modicum of intelligence interpret the statement on the side of the Brexit red bus which read “We send the EU £350m a week – let us fund the NHS instead”, as to mean that all the money saved by withdrawing from the EU would be allocated to the NHS budget?

Yet we still hear from the likes of self-professed better-educated Remainers, QCs, politicians and the BBC, still uttering this nonsense. As for John Cole’s reference to Mark Twain’s quote “It is easier to fool the people than to persuade them they have been fooled” (The Yorkshire Post, March 16), this can also be directed at Remainers who have continually used scaremongering tactics throughout; very few or if any of their claims have to date been proven correct.

From: Coun Tim Mickleburgh (Lab), Grimsby.

I AM amazed that we are talking about paying money to the EU for decades after our withdrawal.

If I decide not to renew my subscription to any organisation, I immediately lose any benefits of membership, while ceasing to contribute towards its expenses. So why should it be any different with the EU, especially as the UK are considerable net contributors?

From: JA King, Thurgoland Sheffield.

FOR the past 18 months I have been trying to find a reason why we should stay in the European Union (soon to be the United States of Europe). I just cannot find one. So we are coming out, and the £350m we send to the EU each week could be spent on our own projects, decided upon by our own people and not overpaid commissioners.

It has been said that we will have a lesser voice in the world outside the EU. Far from it. In the EU, we are just one of 28, we are smothered. I suggest that if you don’t like it here there are alternatives.

From: Don Wood, Howden.

THE UK has paid the EU £209bn net over the years for nothing in return, except a load of useless rules and red tape which have damaged and handicapped our businesses.

We owe them nothing and personally I would not give them a brass farthing more! As for the OBR’s forecasts on our economy, we can safely ignore them as they have, to date, only ever got one right!

Hit Russian assets in UK

From: John Douglas, Spey Terrace, Edinburgh.

WHILe Theresa May’s actions against Russia will have the commendable result of reducing our expenditure on profligate diplomatic missions in the light of the expected tit-for-tat response to her expulsion of Russian diplomats, I fear that she really has underplayed her hand.

Whereas immediate nationalisation without compensation of all Russian-owned property in the UK might lead to a temporary downwards blip in the London property market, selling these assets off by auction could largely finance the costs of Brexit and would allow UK citizens to pick up property at a substantial discount and prices would soon rise again, even without further government subsidy of the rental market by increased Housing Benefit.

Industrial landscape

From: Sue Cuthbert, Newton on Rawcliffe.

I REFER to a letter from David Bate (The Yorkshire Post, March 12) that fracking will have minimal visual impact.

Ryedale is a very small area compared to the US. There is just not room for the fracking industry.

Together with all the infrastructure and lorry movements, this certainly would result in the industrialisation of Ryedale. Agriculture and tourism would not be sustainable alongside the fracking industry.

Limit total of students

From: Hilary Andrews, Nursery Lane, Leeds.

I WAS pleased to read that the Higher Education Policy Institute had begun to realise that uncapped numbers of students going to university is unsustainable. They pay £9,200 a year for the privilege, often to do a degree that will not help them get a good job, paid for by government loans.

These are not repayable until they earn £25,000 a year. Many of them never will and the taxpayer will have to pick up the slack.

Surely a return to capped numbers accepted at university should be reintroduced and more apprenticeships provided?

Lost in translation?

From: Paul Morley, Long Preston, Skipton.

A THOUGHT occurred to me recently. Are English-speaking celebrities the only ones to inflict weird names on their offspring? Plum, River, Romeo and Kai spring to mind. Do foreign celebs inflict the same injustice upon their children?