Letter: Brexiteers should get their facts straight

James Bovington, Horsforth

Your correspondent Mr Brook, from Rothwell, frequently misrepresents the European Union and in this he does us all a disservice.

His latest letter decries apparent control from Brussels in the field of human rights. In fact, the continent wide legislation and the European Court of Human Rights predates the EU by decades dating from about 1949 and is the work of the Council of Europe, with Britain having played a leading role in its creation.

The ECHR is quite distinct from the EU. But facts have never mattered to the anti-European brigade who hanker after a previous Golden Age for Britain that never really existed.

Another Europhobic fantasy is to scaremonger about future powers that the EU has decided to take upon itself, apparently without the need to observe the formality of inconvenient treaties between the nation states.

They know that the British and other armies are to be subsumed into that of a European superstate. Well I may not know much but I do know plenty of educated French people and not one is calling for France to subjugate its powerful armed forces to centralised EU control.

The problem with anti-Europeans is that their bête noire is impossible to define. Hence sometimes the Devil is the Franco-German alliance which cunningly puts their national interests above ours – how dare they? - and at other times it is the EU itself as a supranational organisation determined to strangle the various nation states that gets cast in the role of Satan.

I have no particular fascination with bureaucratic structures but, for me, the EU is the means by which we can enjoy the life-enhancing freedom to live, work and study in other European countries. So our young people can meet each other in cultural exchanges as they develop scientific and linguistic knowledge for the benefit of all on this continent.

Would you prefer that they met elsewhere Mr Brook, as their forebears so frequently did, for the last time just three quarters of a century ago on the beaches of Normandy?

In the meantime Mr Brook is correct that the UK has become a dictatorship as it finds itself in thrall to the DUP led by the likes of Arlene Foster, Nigel Dodds and Sammy Wilson, dinosaurs of another age who seek to separate us from the rest of our continent.

We’re a political laughing stock

W.J.Cichorz, by email

We have a prime minister who resolutely defends democracy by refusing a second vote on the same issue because “the people have spoken”, but is upset when the parliament, on behalf of the people, stops the government having a third vote on a matter rejected twice before.

Is this a cynical and insulting attitude to the rest of us, or just another example of her and her government’s ineptitude.

It seems that Boris Johnson is not the only one turning this great nation into a political laughing stock, into some Ruritania depended for survival on tourism, Britpop and “ironic” humour.

Brexit or no Brexit, how is this country to prosper when we don’t own anything of significance anymore? We depend on foreigners to run our banks, galleries, theatres and museums, to build our power stations and trains, to run our sports clubs and to score goals and points to win trophies for us, to make televisions, computers, washing machines and clothes for us. To run our utilities. To gather our food.

How is this country to prosper when most are proud not to be able to add a column of figures without a calculator, spell, or see the need for grammar in writing? And where most national institutions are heading for bankruptcy because of crass mismanagement. I see little light at the end of either the Brexit or the no-Brexit tunnels and this government does not help the situation.

I hope that someone can debunk all of this and show that Britain is still enterprising and set for a prosperous future.

Tram recycling

Judith Harris, Leeds

I noticed on social media an article from the Yorkshire Evening Post about tram tracks exposed by road works in Leeds.

Could these same tram tracks be re-used for a future tram system? It would be ideal as laying the tracks have already been done and wouldn’t be as costly.

There’s an idea for recycling!

Coin production

Robert Holman, Marsden Court, Farsley

I read the reports that coins could be going out of production due to high costs.

I hear you saying it will never happen - do you remember the £1 and 10 bob note?

I wonder what readers will miss most: nipping in for a meatless sausage roll or a bag of chips, charity boxes, amusement coin machines, public toilets which used to be on every main street, children’s reward pocket money for sweets. For me it would be my pleasure of reading the Evening Post. Oh such happy days that used to be full of smiles and friendly greetings from shopkeepers before the introduction of cost cutting card machines, along with the job losses and customer service.

Send prom back

A Ward, LS8

I found it very depressing to read your article about that American import - the school prom.

When so many people are struggling to make ends meet and there are more and more users of food banks, how can you justify promoting the over-the-top dresses, expensive hair-dos and even fake tans? Parents will be pestered into spending more than they can afford just so their teenager doesn’t feel the odd one out or, worse, gets bullied. Isn’t it time this extravagance was sent back to where it came from?