Letters - November 20, 2018

If you asked most Brits, “How did the Germans commemorate the end of the First World War?” they would not know.

I was reading the newspapers on Sunday and I picked up the Business and Money section of the Sunday Times.

It read: “Germany’s ban on selling arms to Saudi Arabia could jeopardise BAE Systems’ deal to sell a further 48 Eurofighter Typhoon jets to the kingdom”.

While we Brits have been looking solemn at our cenotaphs all over the country and praising the Tommys for giving their lives for our freedom, the Germans have actually done something to promote peace in the world.

They have taken a decision that will reduce the overall amount of fire power available to the Saudis and this will do more to bring an end to the starvation and cholera epidemic in Yemen than any amount of humanitarian aid.

It is shameful that our Parliament can’t make the same decision.

Instead they continue to trade in arms for fear of any loss of jobs in the so-called ‘defence’ industry, and for fear that this might reduce their chances at the polls.

If there was the political will, our Government could cease arms sales to Saudi Arabia and implement a national defence diversification programme.

These actions would move the UK away from being the world’s second largest arms exporter.

They would help to make the world a more peaceful place and would be a meaningful way to honour all those harmed by war be they combatants or civilians.

Joan West

Resident of Lancashire 
(Pictured: A Yemeni man walks on the rubble of a petrol station after it was hit by Saudi-led airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, this year)

GONG

Thanks Matt... your award is deserved!

How long now? A good two years?

As a reader from afar, either from Norfolk or France, I can’t stress how much I feel the recent award to the Gazette’s football man is deserved.

From a selfish viewpoint, please hang on to him!

Carry on, Matt, without deflection. (See it as a job for life, or at least until the Oystons have gone).

My unreserved thanks for what you do.

Barry Thomas

Via email

BREXIT

Deal is hardly in national interest

Mrs May’s proposed Brexit plan is a complete betrayal of the result of the ‘Peoples Vote’ of the 2016 EU referendum and a complete surrender of the country to the EU.

Becoming a rule taker without any say in any of the rules, stuck for perpetuity in a transition period unable to leave without permission from the EU - why would they let us leave ?

Worse, far from it being in the national interest, it is more likely to lead to the break up of our United Kingdom, and plays towards the EU’s plans for a federal United States of Europe.

Maps have been redrawn by German Cartographers dividing the UK and Ireland up and including them as parts of continental Europe as cross nation regions.

Mrs May’s plan proves that despite her rhetoric, she is a Europhile who cares nothing of her country, her party, nor democracy. It was promised that whichever way the vote went the result would be honoured and yet the 17.4 million who voted to leave - the largest vote ever - is being ignored.

Phil Griffiths

Broadcaster and 
Commentator

BREXIT

Predicted political chaos is with us

It is not always pleasing to be proved correct. The current political chaos that I predicted from day one has unfortunately arrived.

The mess has revealed a number of things that are disturbing: the utter selfishness of certain MPs, who are putting their ambitions and wants before their constituents and the nation; the total ineptitude of what was the Labour Party. Nobody knows what their position is on Bexit or the deal achieved by the Prime Minister. Their third-rate front bench cannot even sing the same tune; and the inability of many inside and outside Parliament to grasp the simple point that Theresa May has for two years been grappling with a problem so enormously complex that it makes untying the Gorgon knot seem trivial by comparison.

No matter what is agreed, all major economists predict our economy will suffer along with our standing in the world.

But there is a far, far greater worry. It stems from the thought of our liberal democracy having to cope with the threat of a Corbyn-led government.

This dystopian nightmare would result from putting in No 10 an unpatriotic, antisemitic, incompetent man backed by colleagues who have openly supported terrorists and attacked our armed forces. Such a government would be an unmitigated disaster.

It must never happen.

Dr Barry Clayton

Thornton Cleveleys