LETTERS: Let's leave the EU

I believe that we are the most democratic country in the world, with the privileges of free speech that we have. A person can offer an opinion without the sense of fear.

In response sometimes a reaction is provoked but generally it is safe to say what is on your mind.

Similarly our justice system is again probably the best in the world, with generally fair and explicit judgements made by the courts.

It is unfortunate that we now are having our judgements - which are mainly based on our British Standards, that were devised by our excellent British management - often overruled by Europe and policies such as Health and Safety controlled by European Standards.

Then British people and businesses tend to comply with the European standards, often at high cost, but I can’t imagine most of the European countries doing the same.

I remember ISO 9000 coming out, which is the quality standard used in manufacturing. It was a verbatim copy of our BS 5750.

Isn’t it crazy that our Prime Minister has to negotiate with Europe the terms for paying benefits out of our taxpayers’ budget? On top of all this it is actually costing the tax payer about £9 billion pounds net for the privilege of being abused by the EU.

We existed very well before the EU, we traded with the world, managed our own affairs and used our own reliable justice system.

We still have NATO for security, which is bigger than anything offered by the EU, and we still communicate with the United States for intelligence and we would still have intelligence with other European countries if we came out.

We are a relatively efficient, wealthy country that can be independent again, managing our affairs and borders more efficiently and controlling our vastly expanding population, which is really stressing out our schools, NHS, housing and superstructure in general.

I would love to be totally British again. It is a no vote for me.

Bill Tampin

St Michaels Avenue, Pontefract