MP GAVE AWAY HIS OWN POWER

THE battle over leaving the EU is over and now we can only hope that the UK manages to negotiate a trade deal and that we continue to co-operate with our European neighbours. The “ovenready” deal that Prime Minister Johnson claimed he had achieved appears to have been at best, pure fantasy, and at worst, downright misleading.

Yet amongst the promises made by the Leave campaign there were three key points:

1) More money for the NHS; many people will have voted leave because they believed that they were protecting our NHS.

2) Protecting UK farmers; the promise was that UK farmers would thrive outside of burdensome EU regulations.

3) Taking back control; it was inaccurately argued that the UK Parliament had no say in UK trade deals and that leaving the EU would enable the UK to be sovereign in its own trade deals.

The Tories campaigned on a slogan of “Get Brexit Done” and won the General Election in 2019 with an 80-seat majority.

Yet last week in Westminster, Rossendale & Darwen’s Tory MP, Jake Berry, voted against:

1) An amendment to the Trade Bill to protect the NHS from foreign control in Brexit trade deals.

2) An amendment to the Trade Bill to guarantee food standards against substandard imports (eg. chlorinated chicken from the US) and thus to protect British jobs in the farming sector.

3) Giving UK Parliamentary MPs a vote on future trade deals, instead handing power unchecked to the Cabinet. Our MP has voted to give away his own power.

I’m sure I am not the only resident who would like to know how these voting choices are in our interests. They must certainly cause residents to reflect on promises made at election time. Liz McInnes Haslingden Old Road, Rawtenstall

(Former Labour MP for Heywood & Middleton)

THANK YOU TO CARING COUPLE

I WISH to thank the couple, and Boots staff in Rawtenstall who helped me after I had a fall on Monday 20th. I don’t know what I would have done without them. The couple helped me and got me into Boots and they really looked after me. There was quite a lot of blood, they really took care of me and took me to the Hub.

A grateful 74-year-old Higher Cloughfold

EVERY PENNY VITAL: HOSPICE

IT is almost four months since I sent a statement to the Rossendale Free Press at the start of COVID-19 lockdown.

Little did we know of the impact that would follow, for all of us?

As I am sure you can imagine we have been working harder than ever and in very difficult circumstances. We are part of the East Lancashire CCG Emergency

Response Team for all community services and have met with them (virtually) initially seven days a week. How much we value technology more now. In the first few weeks of the pandemic striking we helped many patients to be discharged from Hospital to home.

We have increased the number of patients we can care for within Hospice at Home services, enabling patients to spend their last days at home -