LETTERS: What you wrote to us about this week

If you would like to send us a letter, you can do that by:

• Writing to Bucks Free Press, Loudwater Mill, Station Road, Loudwater, HP10 PTY
• Sending an email to bfpletters@london.newsquest.co.uk

Our democracy is being undermined

I’m frankly appalled that the Government is proroguing Parliament in September.

With our self-imposed Brexit deadline looming, it means MPs won’t have time to pass laws to stop a no-deal Brexit or scrutinise this very questionable Government at one of the most crucial times in our country’s history.

This undermines the very idea of democracy that Brexit supporters purport to embrace.

With just a few weeks before Brexit, we need politicians in Parliament doing their jobs to make sure we leave the European Union in the best possible way for the sake of future generations.

That’s why I’ve joined the campaign calling for Boris Johnson not to suspend Parliament to force through an undemocratic Brexit, which will do precisely zero to provide closure and reunite our country.

The time is now for MPs to display bold and decisive leadership. I’d like to encourage all others in our area to sign the petition at Change.org/StopTheCoup

Alex, Windsor

I voted Remain – but I’m ashamed of Tory rebels

I wish to respond to two letters, published in the August 30 issue of the Bucks/Marlow Free Press, the first being from Dominic Grieve, MP for Beaconsfield and Marlow Town and the second from Michael Leslie of Seer Green.

Before the referendum in 2016, I attended a fully packed meeting in All saints Church, Marlow, to listen to presentations of the opposing cases, for and against leaving the EU. Speaking for the remain case was Dominic Grieve. The pro leave case was presented by someone, I cannot recall, from the north east of England, who had spent several years in Brussels as some sort of UK representative.

Dominic Grieve gave an articulate and impressive fifteen minutes presentation for the case to Remain. The Leave campaigner was less persuasive. After numerous questions to both parties, the meeting chairman called for a show of hands. The result was an extremely marginal vote to remain.

Having voted to join the EU, under the premiership of Ted Heath, back in the seventies, I remained steadfast in that decision, for at least two decades. However, my vote to join the EU then, was based on expecting a positive and meaningful ongoing contribution by the UK towards the continuing development of what was EFTA. The stark reality, after the last four decades, is that there has been the reckless pursuit, by the unelected leadership of the EU Commission, to drive a dangerously uncontrolled expansion of the number of new member states, whilst moving the EU to a single European federal state, run by the Brussels based Commission.

At the 2016 UK referendum, both my wife and I voted to remain, in the hope that our politicians in Westminster, would work strenuously to deflect the EU in their headlong suicidal pursuit of creating a vast single European State, which, in turn, would be run by an uncontrollable and anti-democratic bureaucracy.

The result of that Referendum was a small but, nevertheless, decisive majority in favour of the UK leaving the EU. Whilst feeling somewhat shocked by the result and sensing the many major challenges that lay ahead, before the UK departed, my wife and I respected the majority decision and looked forward, with some considerable trepidation, to supporting the UK Government in their negotiations with the EU.

What we did not expect was, firstly, the cowardly resignation of David Cameron, the subsequent arrival of Theresa May, a dubiously sceptical Brexiteer, as the new PM, and, finally, the increasingly duplicitous behaviour shown by numerous Conservative MPs, aimed at thwarting the result of the 2016 Referendum.

I would like to challenge the repeated assertions, expressed by the likes of Dominic Grieve, Philip Hammond and Oliver Letwin, that those who voted to leave were insufficiently informed of all the facts and ramifications relating to the present and future for the UK outside the EU and, also, that they were fooled and bamboozled by the rhetoric of the Brexiteers. Such sermonising is both deceitful and highly patronising.

The EU Commission’s position has certainly been steadfast from the outset. Throughout, they have practiced an aggressive determination to cause the UK government as many difficulties as possible to negotiate a mutually workable and politically acceptable exit deal. Even before the departure of Theresa May, they have assiduously courted the opponents of Brexit in the UK, with the expressed aim, even at this late stage, to prevent the UK leaving the EU with or without a mutually acceptable deal. The duplicitous behaviour of the parliamentary politicians, opposed to Brexit, especially those Conservatives in Parliament who are firmly opposed to our departure, either with or without a newly shaped deal, is lamentable and inexcusable.

As a lifelong Conservative supporter and voter, I can only express shame and condemnation of those Tory rebels. Their contemplation of joining forces with Jeremy Corbyn and his band of far left socialists and communist leaning acolytes is truly unbelievable and unforgivable. For their continued treachery and for their total absence of constructive support to the Prime Minister and his government, at such a crucial period of the UK’s future, I sincerely hope that their respective Conservative constituencies deselect them and replace them with candidates with real moral integrity and a genuine desire to contribute to the future prosperity and development of the UK, once outside the EU.

Kenneth Muller, chairman of Great Marlow Parish Council, Great Marlow

We could lose freedom gallant people died for

RE: ‘Thank you for your efforts on 80th anniversary’, Bucks Free Press letters, August 30

While I fully agree with Lawrence Linehan that we owe the veterans of WW2 (and of course WW1) a huge debt of gratitude for protecting our independence and right to self-government from two attempts by Germany to take over Europe by force of arms, it must be remembered that when they failed in the second attempt in 1945 they pledged to conquer Europe by subterfuge and Trojan horse methods which is exactly what they are doing.

If Boris fails to achieve Brexit now, in 2020 the Lisbon Treaty comes into force when we lose the power to govern ourselves and all the rights and freedoms our gallant people fought and died for.

John Fagan, Fulmer

Responding to letters attacking MP

There are two letters attacking Dominic Grieve in today’s BFP (August 23).

The first, by John Fagan, basically rehashes accusations he and other leading minds in the local UKIP party made here in January this year, in a rambling and ill-informed series of letters, in which, amongst other things, Mr Fagan ‘quoted’ what he said (inaccurately) were extracts from ‘our constitution’. These were replied to at the time.

Now he says: ‘Is this the sort of man we want representing us in Westminster?’ I would far prefer Grieve to a one-issue puppet candidate, promoted by Jon Conway, funded by Arron Banks, (possibly with Russian money) and nominated by Jackson Ng and other BCCA Leavers, in a secret ballot of members of the local executive.

Bafflingly Mr Fagan also says: ‘Surely the time has come for the whole constituency to have a vote, not just the Tory party?’ What does this mean – does Mr Fagan believe every voter in the constituency should choose the Tory candidate, or just the MP? If it is just for the MP then surely we have that already – it is called a general election. What did Mr Fagan have in mind?

The second letter, from Bill Goodwin, tells us Dominic Grieve ‘is trying to block Brexit … (because) he has French blood’ and: ‘(Grieve’s) mother is French/ Anglo.’ There is no evidence for this affecting his behaviour and it reminds me of Groucho Marx’s quip that he was born at a very young age, or Dorothy Parker’s that there was no significance in being born in New Jersey: ‘It was just where my mother happened to be at the time’. Among Brexiters Dominic Raab is the son of a Czech and the husband of a Brazilian. Nigel Farage is married to a German – I could prolong this but the idea that foreign connections make people treacherous belongs in Enid Blyton or W.E. Johns.

I would be interested to know where Mr Goodwin gets such detailed information about Grieve’s financial interests – according to the House of Commons Register of members' financial interests: (https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/190812/190812.pdf ) and also the ‘they work for you’ website (https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/10243/dominic_grieve/beaconsfield#register ) he is clearly a rich man but no information is given about ‘mansions’. He himself says he owns building land in France and, despite what Mr Goodwin says, at least part of his wealth comes from interests he and his wife have in the UK and his British legal practice. He also receives high fees here for speaking which he says he gives to ‘charity’. (Interesting to know which one/s.) I would be genuinely interested to know Mr Goodwin’s sources.

Does Mr Goodwin think a subsidy (here or in France?) is the sole reason for Dominic Grieve’s opposition to no-deal Brexit for the UK?

Finally a lot of people will already be aware that Grieve’s old school, the suspiciously foreign-sounding Lycee Francais, is a Franco-British, bilingual, multicultural school opposite the Science Museum in the Cromwell Road, with an international mix of pupils (about 9% British) and subject to Ofsted inspection. The sinister Gyles Brandreth went there (also the scarily foreign-sounding Claude Littner from ‘The Apprentice’).

I always reply to letters I disagree with, however silly, that comment on matters of importance, in case someone takes them for fact, but some of the letters here attacking Grieve and Brexit, sound like nothing so much as name-calling by the school idiots saying how much they despise the much-cleverer school swot.

Lawrence Linehan, Wooburn Green