Dear Sir,
Angela Bergg states that she is a true Northerner and wants to remain in the EU because the undemocratic EU gives the North East more back in funding per capita than the North East taxpayers contribute. If this is indeed the case, presumably successive British Governments have allowed this to happen. However, come BREXIT there will be more British tax payer’s money available to spend in the North! It’s a no brainer!
Why pay the EU £15 billion per year just so that they can distribute the remainder of our EU contribution? It must be better and more democratic just to LEAVE the EU and spend all our own taxes where the electorate want them to be spent. Yes, Mrs Bergg, there is a North / South divide but remaining in the EU will only perpetuate it.
When I first moved to the North East (more than 40 years ago) I thought that the North East voted Labour because it was poor. After the New Labour era I have come to realise that the North East is poor because it predominantly votes labour!
During our membership of the EEC, and latterly the EU, we have not only lost over a million jobs but we have lost great industries: Coal, Steel, Shipbuilding, Aluminium; with Farming and Fisheries being at great risk due to our continued membership of the EU.
Coal – It is now cheaper to import coal from Poland than to mine our own.  If we leave the EU and Poland decides to raise its prices we can easily produce our own coal and repatriate a lot of jobs.
Steel – 35,000 steel jobs were lost under New Labour.  EU ‘rules’ meant that we could not subsidise our steel production. Also, EU ‘Green energy’ targets meant that our costs of production were artificially high and uncompetitive, even within Europe!
Shipbuilding – When the Pallion Yard at Sunderland closed the emergency funding (our own tax money) received from the EU was conditional upon the most up-to-date shipyard in Europe not being used for shipbuilding! Germany and the Netherlands, in the meantime, illegally subsidised their shipbuilding.
Aluminium – Again, EU ‘green energy’ targets and taxes on fossil fuels meant that our production could not remain competitive.
Farming – Remember the butter, grain, and sugar mountains and the wine lakes? The Common Agricultural Policy uses our taxes to pay farmers not to farm. Our Dairy Industry is in danger due to the ‘dumping’ of over production in the EU, subsidised by our taxes. Better to pay our own farmers to farm our land rather than subsidise over-production in the EU and dumping in Britain. We will have more money after leaving the EU to properly fund our farming.
Fisheries – For years we have been making criminals out of our skippers and scrapping our fishing boats so that Spanish and other EU fishing fleets could plunder our fisheries. Madness!
Mrs Bergg’s ‘fear campaign’ is based upon the fact that she does not trust our democratically elected Government to properly and fairly distribute the monies we taxpayers currently pay to the EU. This is a perfectly rational fear for a labour supporter. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown after him, both failed to address the North / South divide.  However, even if her fear is justified and a post BREXIT British Government distributes our total contribution to the EU along the lines that it is currently distributed (partly by the EU) then the fact that there will be an extra £15 billion in the kitty will mean that the North will be financially better off OUT rather than IN.
As an aside.  Today I received a ‘Remain’ leaflet delivered by an employee of “Royal Mail”. Does this mean that the Queen has gone back on her word?  Is she now allowing the ‘Royal’ warrant to be used by the ‘Remain’ campaign? Is this the level playing-field we were promised?
Perhaps, the Prime Minister, as figurehead for the ‘Remain’ campaign, can enlighten us upon if/and when Her Majesty decided to side with his campaign.
Alastair P.G. Welsh