Email
June 18, 2017
Dear Editor
Re the “Individual’s view of Brexit”, I did read Chris King’s whole-page letter in the CBN in your edition of June 9. And I agreed with most of what he wrote about the way in which the European Union is run. However, I disagree with him that this means that we should leave the EU. Yes, the EU does need some drastic changes – so why shouldn’t we remain in the EU and campaign within the organisation for some fundamental changes to be made?
In your June 16 edition, P J Henham wrote, “… plunging Britain back into the dark days of socialist rule is frightening”. I believe that the dark days of the past were actually the way Thatcher ruled and the way the Tory government has been destroying the wonderful socialist-created welfare state and national health service from which I and the rest of my generation benefited. Some people now claim that the UK can’t afford that system any longer because of the number of immigrants. I believe that is simply not true. The reason the welfare and health system now costs so much is because of (a) the poor way in which it is managed, and (b) the majority of the population is living longer. What is therefore required is for reform of the way the system is run, for the tax avoidance of the big corporations to be challenged, and for them and the wealthy to be taxed more. The UK government should care about the people and maintain a decent welfare and health system.
In another letter in your edition of June 16, Pete Alden was critical of the Labour party and wrote (amongst other rubbish): “I won’t even start to start on how much it would cost to buy back the water industry and part of the electrical supply network.” Surely these and the other essential publicly-owned industries and services should never have been de-nationalised by the Tories in the first place? When the terrible policy of the privatisation of all these industries and services was first begun, suppose the Labour party had strongly announced that when they are voted into government, all those services would be taken back into public ownership with zero compensation to the owners/shareholders? That way, people might have been afraid to put their money there, and privatisation would have failed. Maybe the Labour party, if elected into government, should do that anyway!
Surely everything should be run primarily for the good of the community and not primarily for profit. Of course, some profit is essential in order to do research and development. But just so the rich can get richer? Give me a break! Or should I say, “Give me a Brexit from capitalism”.
Mike Lawson
