Brexit LETTERS: Impartiality, manners and making voices heard

The human cost of Brexit

There have been many letters about Brexit in these pages, but few about its human cost.

Mr Johnson is happy to take us out of the EU with no deal. This would break the Good Friday agreement (an international treaty) and put peace in Northern Ireland at risk.

To understand the irresponsibility of what Johnson suggests, imagine a hard border across Walsall between your own home and place of work, plus serious violence, and then remember that the Northern Irish are citizens of the UK in just the same way as Midlanders.

After three years of uncertainty the 1.5 million British citizens in the EU and the three million EU expats here still do not know whether they will be able to keep their pensions and healthcare.

Many do not even know if they can stay in their own homes with their families.

Those working across borders often face the loss of their business, while those with elderly relatives in their country of origin are unlikely to be able to return to care for them at need.

Imagine yourself in their positions: there is a lot of real human pain in this process. The EU offered to take citizens rights out of the negotiations and ring fence them at the beginning of the process, but the British Government rejected this suggestion, preferring to keep all these people as bargaining chips. Which begs the question: which of these cares about ordinary people- the British Government, or the EU?

Finally, Johnson has no qualms about trashing our supply chains by no deal. This could wreck our car manufacturers, with the loss of thousands of people’s jobs, particularly in the West Midlands.

It will reduce supplies of good, safe food, and medicines, which could affect all of us.

These are not the actions of a government that cares about the ordinary people it is supposed to represent.

Judith King

Walsall

Impartiality is crucial in Brexit debate

Parliament was called back to the Commons and as usual the Prime Minister Boris Johnson was the main target.

I do believe it would help everyone concerned if the BBC and their political editors from the UK and Brussels could remain impartial, instead of putting the blame on Brexit and the Prime Minister who is trying very hard to get a deal with the EU and bring the country back together.

It is obvious that the Remainers are still trying their utmost to stop Brexit and the Prime Minister in any way possible.

This country doesn’t seem to matter to them or the 17.4 million people who voted to leave the EU; they have obviously now forgotten what democracy means.Why?! What is so wonderful about the EU?

We cannot make our own rules, and with the vast amount of money the UK sends to the EU we are keeping most of the poorer countries.

The EU wants an army, they ridicule our Prime Ministers, and they are doing their utmost to stop Brexit, probably because they do want our money.

There have been threats on both sides, it would be helpful if the BBC could be more respectful with the use of its language especially when describing the Prime Minister, saying “the Prime Minister scurried out of the Commons”.

Is this what the BBC calls professionalism?

I doubt very much they would use this kind of language when referring to the Speaker of the Commons John Bercow.

I’m sure that the Prime Minister and many people in this country felt very sad and upset as I did about the tragic death of Jo Cox now everyone should respect Jo’s family.

Jackie Lewis

Pattingham

Let’s try some good manners

Jackie Lewis’s (Letters Sep 18) is much exercised about “unelected EU judges”. Another stock phrase often wheeled out is “unelected Brussels bureaucrats”.

I’m intrigued by the hyper-democratic demands being made on EU institutions. From my time as an unelected school kid, through jobs as unelected software engineer and unelected lecturer, to my present status as an unelected pensioner, I have been accustomed to most jobs being filled by appointment, rather than election. This is certainly the case for judges in both the English and Scottish legal systems. They interpret and apply the law passed by elected politicians. Judges of the European courts do the same.

Turning to the bureaucrats, let’s try some good manners and call them civil servants. Once again, British civil servants are appointed, not elected, and are in fact barred from some political activities, such as standing for election, which might cast doubt on their impartiality. Just like their counterparts in the EU institutions!

So, are those moaning about “unelected” European functionaries consistently urging that analogous British jobs also be filled by election rather than, say, appointing as judges persons with academic qualifications in law and of advocacy in courts? If not, why do they demand election only of the EU officials?

Alan Harrison

Walsall

I knew I what I was voting for

I really am getting fed up with the Remoaners who keep on telling me that I did not know what I was voting for, as I and all the others who voted to leave were influenced by the Boris bus.

Let me assure all of them that I knew exactly what I was doing. I was one of the many who did the count when we voted to go into the EEC in spite of General de Gaulle. This was a Common Market in order to improve trade without the imposition of taxes. We did not vote for nor did we want a European Empire which is what the EEC has morphed into. If we stay in the EU is there any point in our present Parliament or judiciary as most of our rules and regulations are now apparently made by the EU? Look how much money we would save by not having our own rules.

Sorry once again for the noise of our ancestors rolling in their graves especially those who died saving this country from serfdom.

Len Hales

Cradley Heath

We must make our voices heard now

Our Prime Minister is working under enormous pressure to loyally support the democratic decision of the people of this country, who overwhelmingly voted in an open referendum to leave the European Union.

Sadly, he is being thwarted by the cowardice, bullying, and coercion exhibited by the many vocal traitors who hide under the authority of being an MP – or those in other influential positions – who seek to destroy this country, taking power from the people.

Make no mistake, we are being led like lambs to the slaughter, guided by many disloyal MPs, the biased media, and the barrage of EU propaganda fed to our schools and universities. Political correctness has killed free speech, our way of life is under attack, our family values destroyed, and British traits ridiculed or made to look harmful.

The UK indigenous population is being treated like second-class citizens. This was always the aim of the EU, who years ago showed the UK on a map as one of its ‘regions’.

The majority decision to leave the EU in a referendum was clearly the people’s choice in 2016.

Why would anyone wish to change that democratic decision?

There was life before the EU which was quite happy and content. There is no problem dealing with European countries; so why do we have to pay a fortune to be ruled and destroyed by this expensive and destructive dictatorship?

I suspect it is to push us towards the New World Order . . . the utopian way of life that already exists in the Ten Commandments. The difference is that the Commandments do not need wealthy dictators to enforce them.

The threat is great and fast growing – the people have the power to fight back through the ballot box, while they still can.

Brian Seymour

West Midlands

MPs are living in a cocoon

What a spectacle we have witnessed – a case of ‘pot’ and ‘kettle’ with MPs accusing the Prime Minister of being undemocratic when they, themselves, have for three years, ignored democracy after pledging that they would uphold it.

Parliament resumed after the Supreme Court ruled that its prorogation was unlawful. No longer are we the land of the free as Supreme Court seizes control of Brexit and democracy from Parliament.

Now they will no doubt continue, with undiminished zeal, their plots to avoid leaving the EU, regardless of how many more people and businesses will continue to be left in uncertainty. These MPs behave as if they are in a Westminster cocoon and the rest of the country is totally unimportant.

Had they acted on behalf of the country immediately after the referendum result, ignoring their disappointment instead of taking such a petulant stand, a deal could have been reached and, by now, we could have been settling into the new systems.

Instead, we will be subjected to more insults on the lack of intelligence of ‘Leave’ voters, cries from Remainers to be left to accept the plans of unelected managers in the EU and more months of being the laughing stock of the rest of the world.

I have taken part in quite a few general elections and the result has often not been one that pleased me, but I, and the rest of the electorate, accepted the democratic vote and got on with life. Why is it impossible for these self-centred MPs to do the same?

Alan Davis

Darlaston