All bets are off if MPs stop Brexit - Yorkshire Post Letters

As our MPs strut their stuff in a self-regarding round of “indicative votes”, they seem to forget that by extending Brexit they are also booking a day at the races, on May 22 to witness the EU Popularity Stakes!

Runners and riders as follows:

Tory Trooper: This old stager has had his day, could have a new jockey on the day but even that’s unlikely to help him recover lost ground, Odds 40-1.

Labour’s Lost Love: looks confused, previous winning jockey still shouting from the sidelines, but not for this horse! Odds 30-1.

Lib Dem Dreamer: In theory should attract a lot of support, if he leaves the starting gate could put up a good run, but it’s more likely to resemble a lap of honour for the also-ran retiring jockey, Odds 20-1.

Brexit Bounder!: Off-the-bridle, he’s unstoppable, won this race last time, same jockey but coming out of a new stable, youngest jockey with hunger to win again and likely to show a little more maturity this time, Odds 10-11 favourite.

After the results of that indicative vote are declared, any further attempts to put Brexit out to grass will have to be abandoned, otherwise many of our MPs will be booking a trip to the Knackers’ Yard, after a general election which will surely follow later this year.

From: Roger Backhouse, Orchard Road, Upper Poppleton, York.

News of the reported one million-strong march and Trafalgar Square rally to stop Brexit makes me think how things change.

In March 1971 I happened across an anti-Common Market rally in Trafalgar Square.

Ted Heath was pressing to join the European Economic Community, predecessor of the EU. The anti-EEC audience at the rally were fewer than 500; with good speeches from Peter Shore (Labour) and the late Richard Body (Conservative backbencher).

The first SNP MP, Winifred Ewing, gave the best speech against EEC entry. They were constantly heckled by a large group of Young Conservatives, passionately in favour of joining the EEC. I disliked them instantly.

Ted Heath won and Britain joined the EEC. Margaret Thatcher followed with the Single European Act in 1988.

Now Conservative politicians are fighting like cats in a sack.

What a pity there wasn’t more opposition to the EEC way back in 1971. Leave comes 45 years too late.

From: Nigel Boddy, Fife Road, Darlington.

Is everyone at Westminster asleep at the wheel?

Wasn’t the judgment of the European Court that we had until March 29 to unilaterally withdraw from Article 50?

Has anyone in government received legal advice on the extension and whether we still have that right after Friday to unilaterally stop Article 50?

Has the whole of Westminster blundered yet again?

First of all they ask us a question in the referendum which doesn’t actually cover the single market. Now this.

From: Peter Hyde, Driffield.

Like most who voted to leave the EU, I feel totally betrayed by those elected representatives who, having been elected to serve us as MPs, have taken action which makes the exit doubtful.

As far as I am concerned they should be deselected by their parties. Just who do they think they are to take such a diabolical line on Brexit?

The real price of housing

From: Terence Emmingham, Woodlands Village, Wakefield.

Affordable housing scams are a game of snakes and ladders.

Wakefield’s Labour council is promoting a Tory government-approved “affordable housing” scheme of “shared ownership” at Sparable Lane, Wakefield.

Despite newspaper headlines, “cheap housing” promotes a 
step on a ladder which merely makes available a risky scheme to those who cannot afford a normal deposit and mortgage, without mentioning the 
snakes!

The houses are over-priced, and likely mortgage payment protection at 3.25 per cent per annum (more than £2,000) is not mentioned, nor is the risk if house prices drop or interest rates rise.

This is while the ownership is illusory as it is leasehold property, which has no value at all and nowhere to live at the end of the lease.

I live in a similar scheme nearby where overpriced flats are only worth 40 per cent after 12 years!

A song for Mother’s Day

From: John Appleyard, Firthcliffe Parade, Liversedge.

Scott Walker had everything going for him in the 1960s – good looks and a great voice, the fans adored him, and he led the Walker Brothers to the top of the charts with songs such as Make It Easy on Yourself and The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore.

My favourite song of theirs, 
and also my late mother’s, was My Ship is Coming In, I remember watching the song being performed on Top of the Pops with my mother, she said: “One of these days our ship will come in”. It never did, but I will give the record a spin on Mother’s Day in her memory and remember just how good Scott Walker was.