A day of determination to get a fair deal for Yorkshire
IT’S YORKSHIRE Day, a moment to celebrate our glorious, matchless county.
Let’s be unashamedly proud. Let’s raise a glass to country and coast, to vibrant cities and picture-postcard villages, and to the people whose character and generosity of spirit makes Yorkshire a uniquely wonderful place to live.
Yes, we deserve the pat on the back we give ourselves every August 1, but this Yorkshire Day, we’d do ourselves a further favour by making a resolution.
And that should be to speak up for Yorkshire with vigour, unity and unflagging resolve in the coming 12 months and beyond.
It means shouting out what we have to offer and what we need to make Yorkshire the most successful it can be. It means business and civic leaders speaking with one voice, politicians pressing our case to the Government and international audiences being woken up to the role that we want to play on the world stage.
This isn’t about making Yorkshire Day political. It’s about harnessing the goodwill and pride it engenders for tangible benefit. Let’s not be shy or selfdeprecating. Let’s proclaim how good we are and demand the things we deserve.
And nobody should doubt the need for Yorkshire to shout those demands from the rooftops. Look around the national and international landscapes, and there is much to concern our county. For a
It is to be hoped that Mr Grayling has the decency to at least squirm about the unfairness of that when council leaders from Yorkshire are amongst the delegation due to meet him in the next month to demand a more equitable deal for the North.
But don’t bet on that, any more than put money on the Government doing anything to break the deadlock on a devolution deal for Yorkshire. That frustrating impasse is, unfortunately, of Yorkshire’s own making thanks to squabbling and rivalries that should have been set aside so that the county could enjoy the benefits of devolution just as Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham are doing.
Even so, the Government should have stepped in long before now to act as an honest broker to bring all sides together with the aim of reaching a formula acceptable to the rival factions. And then there is the great unknown of Brexit, the consequences of which for Yorkshire remain unclear.
Yet the past week should have put us on alert about a possible threat to our farmers. The argument over potential imports of chickens from the United States that have been chemically treated had a touch of the absurd about it, but what it told us about the implications of a trade deal being eagerly pursued by the Government was worrying.
The American position that there can be no deal without it including food is fraught with danger.
Cheap imports which undercut our own produce could prove a major problem for agriculture.
Meat that is cheaper because it is massproduced to lower welfare standards than in Britain may be an unappetising prospect to those who like to know that their Sunday roast comes from Yorkshire farms, but to families on low incomes, it would be a choice hard to resist on the weekly supermarket run.
The farmers who are the guardians of our countryside are already under too much pressure. We know from the dairy farmers driven out of business by unfair prices paid for milk what can happen and it is up to the Government to ensure any US trade deal does not harm Yorkshire agriculture. And it’s up to us to make Yorkshire’s voice heard on these vital issues, with the forthright plain-speaking that is one of our defining characteristics.
Yorkshire Day, besides being a celebration, should be a time to take stock, to pause a moment and think about who we are and where we want to go.
It’s a day to reflect on the things that make us special and think about how they can be safeguarded and built upon.
It’s a day for optimism, but a day for determination as well, to get the things we need to ensure that there is even more to celebrate on all the Yorkshire Days that lie ahead.