LETTERS: Opinions split over Brexit

A COUNCILLOR has reflected on the ‘racist views’ she heard while campaigning for the UK to stay in the EU.

In a letter to the Warrington Guardian, Cllr Rebecca Knowles (LAB – Chapelford and Old Hall) says it is becoming ‘increasingly apparent’ that the public is having a ‘rethink’ on Brexit.

She said: “Over two years later, I am still processing the shock and disappointment of some of the conversations I had with Warringtonians whilst canvassing for us to remain in Europe during the referendum.

“Time and again I heard racist views that I mistakenly thought we had long since moved on from as a community and as a society.

“However, younger people who have grown up with a more positive view of integration were generally baffled about why we would not want to remain in the EU.

“There are many economic and regulatory arguments for remaining within the EU, but here is a philosophical one.

“Do we really want to be a nation of blamers, wearing the prejudice in our hearts for all to see, on our sleeves?

“Do we really choose to live in an atmosphere of xenophobia?

“Many people are under deep pressure as a result of this Government’s cruel austerity policies.

“These are proving to be a cynical method of redistributing wealth towards the already rich, while overwhelmingly failing to have reduced national debt or maintain public services.

“We find ourselves in the perfect circumstances for wanting to find others to scapegoat, just like in the Depression of the 1930s.

“But I believe we can be better than that.

“Warrington should be proud that we have escaped much of the racial hostility that blights some other northern towns.

“By and large we have shown ourselves to be tolerant and cohesive.

“Maybe we can afford to, because employment is high here and the town is, overall, more prosperous than some others. Our immigrant population is comparatively low. “The ward I represent is one of Warrington’s most diverse, with many minority ethnic residents from a wealth of backgrounds who contribute greatly to the town and region, particularly through their work at all levels of the NHS and public sector.

“They are part of Warrington’s success, and I want them to feel that they are an asset to our town, valued as much as every other member of the community they’ve committed to be part of.

“We have had a popular and successful Muslim mayor.

“We went on to choose him to be Warrington South’s representative in Westminster, to work on behalf of all his constituents.

“In this we’ve shown ourselves to be forward thinking and open minded.”

A TWO-TIME UKIP general election candidate believes ‘Britain must declare’ a no-deal Brexit.

James Ashington stood in Warrington South and Warrington North in the 2010 and 2017 general elections.

He remains a key figure within UKIP’s Warrington branch.

In a letter to the Warrington Guardian, he said: “Trading with the EU under the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) rules ‘isn’t the end of the world’, said WTO director general Roberto Azevedo, the world’s leading trade diplomat in November 2017.

“He said that UK/EU trade under WTO rules would be ‘perfectly manageable’, even if there was no formal free trade agreement between the two.

“This contradicts the doom mongers who claim that Britain must give into Brussels’ every demand.

“Sounds like another project fear? According to them, leaving the EU means we would ‘crash out over the cliff edge to a disaster’.

“Britain must declare ‘no deal’ because if there is no agreement between the UK and the EU (which seems increasingly likely), we will be forced to accept any trade deal the EU offers, however much it favours Germany and the other 27 EU member states.

“Mrs May’s misguided strategy is to present Brexit as a choice between the Chequers proposals and ‘no deal’, forcing her to make ‘no deal’ look dreadful.

“Such a strategy is another fudge and, if the Prime Minister to survive beyond next month’s Tory Party conference, she must rapidly change tack.

“The truth is that Chequers is dead.

“She must take Chequers off the table and return to the vision she outlined in January 2017 at Lancaster House.

“The real choice is between ‘no deal’ (perfectly manageable) and a free trade agreement with the EU.

“The UK conducts most of its trade outside the EU, largely under WTO rules.

“Such trade is growing and forms the largest part of our exports, generating a surplus.

“Our trade with the EU, in contrast, accounts for well under half of our exports, is falling and is in deficit.

“Mrs May must ditch Chequers and reassert, as she did at Lancaster House, that the UK is unequivocally leaving the single market and the customs union.

“The world understands trading under WTO rules.

“It would not understand the deliberate destruction by Brussels of UK/EU commerce, costing member states billions of euros in profit and loss of countless jobs, neither would EU voters.

“So, chuck Chequers Mrs May, it’s dead – or be replaced by someone who will.”