NHS will be hit hard no matter how we finally leave the EU

WE are writing on behalf of Stockport NHS Watch, a local organisation set up to defend the NHS. We are non-party political and are self-funding.

It is now beyond doubt that Brexit represents an even greater danger to the NHS than the present underfunding, dismantling, and privatization.

All forms of Brexit deal or no deal, hard or soft - will be disastrous for at least three reasons: a) The adverse impact on the economy will mean that funding available for all public services, including the NHS, will fall precipitously perhaps up to 40 per cent but at least of the order of 20pc. b) The present 100,000 NHS staffing shortage will be exacerbated due to the fall in the number of doctors and nurses coming from the EU, on whose excellent service we have been so dependent. c) Most worryingly, in order to strike trade deals post-Brexit with partners such as the USA, we will have to open the NHS to multinational private health businesses. To envisage what this means, we need only look to the USA, where a health service that costs twice as much per head as ours has been found in a survey to be the worst health system in 14 advanced economies.

A recent study in Journal of the American Medical Association revealed that nearly a half of people with cancer had used up their life savings within two years of diagnosis to pay for their care.

On 20th October 700,000 people marched to demand a second referendum.

They were addressed by MPs of five parties (Tory, Labour, Green, Lib-Dem, and SNP) and there was a consistent message: we must all write to our MPs begging them to oppose Brexit, whose catastrophic consequences no-one voted for.

Anyone who cares for the NHS should follow their advice. Andrew Wedderburn (Co-Chair), Theresa Tallis (Co-Chair), Stockport NHS Watch

WHY I REMAIN UNCONVINCED

I DON’T know about our other readers, but I have had enough of Brexit.

I do know that over half of the town voted to remain.

Today they are saying a comprehensive agreement is as far away as ever.

That is after 28 months of little else dominating the headlines.

I’m starting to wonder why I waste chunks of my life reading all this, when I could be garnering for more useful information and insight on life from ancient copies of the Beano and Dandy.

Slowly, I am learning when to shut out vacuous politics, if only to preserve one’s own sanity.

I give BBC’s Radio 4, The World Tonight news programme about three minutes after it has started talking about Brexit.

Then I switch it off and out comes my Blondie CDs and DVDs. That’s my escape, make sure you have one.

A clear head to see through the mist of claims and counter-claims surrounding Brexit will remind us that immigration is what drives this drivel.

Theresa May and her cohorts want net annual immigration down from 200,000 to the tens of thousands.

The Little Englanders that sit in her cosy camp, cannot grasp the fact that an ageing population of 65.5 million people need the injection of at least 200,000 eager, fit young people every year, to keep the wheels of a huge, diverse nation moving.

Germany took in a million Syrian refugees in one year alone and went on to out perform Britain’s productivity figures, as measured by GDP.

Stockport voted against Brexit, and in my book at least it made the right call. John Tyers Marple