Hot air

HEADLESS chickens normally run around farmyards, not the halls of Westminster, but that’s exactly what’s going on today.

The majority of Britain voted to leave the EU. But will their wishes ever be granted?

As a leaver, I am annoyed that exiting the EU has dragged on so long.

I’m even more annoyed that Theresa May’s laughable withdrawal agreement means the greedy European puppeteers are still pulling the strings.

The Prime Minister and some of her advisers have the backbone of a jellyfish. They are terrified to leave the EU without handing out a string of juicy concessions.

I say let the Europeans come begging to us, rather than the other way around. They must be laughing

all the way to the bank – it’s like Black Friday and the New Year sales all rolled into one.

We hear many fear stories from ministers who want the deal voted through – we hear of food and medicine shortages, even a water shortage due the purifying chemicals being produced abroad.

Goodness me, does Britain manufacture anything, apart from hot air?

This Government’s had ample time to prepare for such eventualities, yet has done nothing but sit on its hands and bicker.

Stephen Dixon, Redcar

Payback time

DAVID TAYLOR-GOOBY advises that we receive considerable aid from the EU (HAS, Nov 29). As we pay between £15bn and £16bn a year to the organisation, I think we deserve to, but as the amount we receive is far short of what we contribute, I do not think we should be that grateful.

In leaving the EU, we will not be giving the weekly amount so in fact the UK is just cutting out the middle man.

David appears to forget that many people in the North-East voted to leave so the present Conservative Prime Minister is just attempting to carry out their wishes as vote leave did win.

Nothing has happened since the referendum to make me change my mind.

According to David, “we would all like an election to get rid of the present government”. What a sweeping statement as he certainly doesn’t speak for me.

What would follow an election? Possibly another Labour government which with policies of spend, spend, spend which would take the UK back to the unhealthy position of 2010? Didn’t one Labour representative say to the incoming Conservatives “good luck there is no money left”?

David should be careful what he wishes for.

Mike Taylor, Darlington

A question

I HAVE yet to see what possible questions would be on a so-called People’s Vote advocated by the Remoaners (sorry Remainers). While Remoaners is generally seen as a derogatory phrase, surely the same applies to People’s Vote. They should be using the phrase “second referendum”.

Who will be fooled by a phrase?

The Remoaners obviously hope the referendum decision will be reversed. But how can it be, when the questions would either be to 1) accept the negotiated deal, 2) have a hard Brexit, or 3) just remain in the EU?

Such a vote could easily be split three ways, so we would not be any further forward! Question setters to the fore!

B East, Bishop Auckland

Leaders dearth

O ME MISERUM.

I was so sad to read of the death of the wonderful, patriotic Lady Trumpington (Echo, Nov 29).

When admirable British characters like her and Jacob Rees-Mogg do not receive the respect that their talents and personalities deserve, it is a woeful state of affairs.

For this magnificent country to be left with a choice of leaders between that pathetic appeaser Theresa May, who has let the EU “negotiators” trample all over us, and that disgraceful, scruffy, lefty Jeremy Corbyn who doesn’t even have the nous to dress correctly at the Cenotaph when honouring our war dead, is an absolute disgrace.

John R Armstrong, Etherley Grange

Brexit too big

I KNOW I have previously moaned about the chaos of Brexit, but I recently listened to comments by Dr Phil Hammond, the TV doctor, who said that when the referendum was held, the choice was far too big for any one person. He was suggesting that what should have happened was the best brains of all political parties should have got together, and that could have included heads of industry, to decide the best way forward.

That makes a lot of sense to me and perhaps we wouldn’t be in the mess that we are in now.

There are parties who are opposed to any way forward no matter what.

I hope that when it’s all over, at the next general election voters will remember the ones who have stood in the way of progress and vote them out.

John Brant, Darlington

Tower talk

FURTHER to Cllr Steve Kay’s letter comparing the “Redcar tower” to the leaning tower of Pisa (HAS, Nov 29), it seems in today’s politics most things have a Brexit angle to them.

The reality is that when the Redcar Beacon was going through the consultation process several years ago, there were very few objections to that piece of the multi-million pound Redcar regeneration project.

In politics generally, people will jump on a bandwagon. In the House of Commons, MPs appear to be jumping on the anti-May bandwagon. However, if there’s no credible alternative to Mrs May’s deal, is it right for MPs to put a spanner in the works and lead to us crashing out of the EU without a deal?

George Dunning, Ormesby