YEP Letters December 13

EU is dictating divorce terms Martin J Phillips, Leeds 16 So Theresa May has gone crawling back to Brussels cap-in-hand asking for permission to renegotiate Brexit terms. The whole point of the referendum decision to leave the EU was to break away from Brussels control yet Theresa May is still allowing them to dictate the terms of any divorce. If Mrs May had genuinely believed her own words that “leave means leave” the government could have spent the last two years negotiating trade deals with countries outside of the EU. That way, any of the EU countries that still wanted to trade with the UK would have had to come to us to make agreements on our terms. Instead Mrs May has done her best to align herself to what she was aiming for all along i.e. that “leave means remain”. Leeds council tax set to rise: your views Council tax is set to rise by nearly four per cent and dozens of jobs face the axe plans for Leeds City Council’s 2019-20 budget have revealed. A total of 74 full-time jobs at the local authority could be slashed within the next two years as the cash-strapped council aims to make more than £24m worth of savings. Coun Judith Blake - leader of the council - blamed continuing cuts from central Government funding and rising pressures within the adult social care sector for the “challenging year” it now faces. We asked YEP readers for their views and here’s what some of them said on social media.. Graeme Scholey So that’s a 14 per cent over the last three years. Has any one else had this amount of pay rise? Richard Walton Perhaps Judith Blake and many others should take pay and allowance cuts? I have to question what do I get for my money? All I see is my bin being emptied. Lynne Caulfield They need to start asking for more from central Government. London gets over a billion to bail out Crossrail whilst we get a few buses. Also stop wasting money on consultations and pulling out of projects before they’re fully costed. Lady-Michele Bettison Stick to the matters in hand. Stop wasting our money and stop blaming ‘adult social care’, that old chestnut has been used before. You know it’s coming, so budget. Plus, get more ‘in house’ jobs and stop paying triple the money to sub-contractors. Gordon Crooks Great news, less pen pushers and bean counters. Let’s hope some of the people who have wasted millions over the years are shown the door. Steve Carr So yet again this council raise council taxes and provide less. Start cutting some of the waste and lower council tax.Did anyone get a 3.99 per cent pay rise this year? Give us final say James Bovington, Leeds 18 If Judy Goodwin (YEP Letters, December 10) thinks that Brexit is a dog’s dinner I ask why she is so keen to leave the banqueting house that is the EU? Of course, it is no such thing but your correspondent has written the typical eurosceptic nonsense about Britain having to accept every ‘law and diktat’ from the EU over the past 45 years even when it had a negative effect. There’s rarely a specific example from them that can be attributed to the EU. While I have some sympathy about the EU fishing policy it is true that other countries have had major problems with fishing and Canada even closed down its fishing industry for a while so this isn’t EU specific. I am aghast that our Prime Minister appears to be casually throwing away our right and more importantly that of our young people to live, work and study across the continent and to shape its future. Although this may well have been sorted I am appalled that no one realised that leaving the EU meant unilateral withdrawal from Euratom the agreement which facilitates radiotherapy. Even I didn’t and I spend hours on this to my wife’s amusement. Most people now admit that they were severely misled by the ‘cake and eat it’ promises of the Leave campaign and the only way out of the impasse is to ask the people if their decision still stands. If it does you will never get another pro-EU letter from me. Any second referendum should also give voice to 16-17 year olds. Many of these students are currently being asked to determine their future by applying to university. It seems only fair that they should be given the opportunity to voice their desire to enjoy the same rights as other young Europeans, the same rights that all in Northern Ireland will retain under the ‘deal’. I predict that 20 million UK citizens would vote to remain. Give us the final say.