Letters: 'The pound was in serious decline long before the 2016 referendum'

It began to slide in 2010 when the so-called recession (for that read depression) blew up as a result of greedy city bankers making their fortunes by underhand speculation.

Austerity became the byword of the decade, and so it continues and shows little signs of improvement.

It may well have resulted in making our holiday money go less far, but please remember that there are a considerable number of people who can’t afford a holiday at all, and are having to rely on food banks to have some semblance of a half decent living standard.

Austerity is a deliberate policy of the EU and most countries associated with it are suffering the same problems, one of which is the rise of extreme right wing, anti-establishment factions.

When all is said and done, the EU’s sole raison d’etre has been to create a United States of Europe in the same manner as the US.

I personally don’t want the UK to become just another state of Europe where our sovereignty and a great deal of other hard-won rights are controlled by people over whom we have little or no say.

Brian Sutherland, Sedgefield