A black day in our history

I’d really like to believe that was to be true, but all indications point in a different direction and more people are becoming aware of the devastating effect even the threat of Brexit is having on the economy with the fall of sterling, turmoil in the markets, lack of consumer confidence, price rises and major impacts on small businesses who have to trade with USA or the EU.

I sincerely hope Nissan continues to expand within Sunderland, but it is vital that the UK continues to access the single market as punishing tariffs would, at the very least stop future expansion, and Sunderland without Nissan does not bear contemplation.

The Leave campaign’s unrelenting warnings about immigration (including the deliberate fusion of this issue with that of the migrant crisis) have whipped up xenophobia in what was once a tolerant country and we are now deeply divided.

Leave campaigners immediately abandoned spending ‘commitments’ implied in their literature and it feels as if the politicians who led the campaign did not really expect to win, and are acting like rats leaving a sinking ship.

The North East will no longer benefit from the many grants received from the EU.

Nationally, we are likely to have a series of governments dominated by the Tories.

What will happen to the NHS and other institutions with many more years of enforced austerity? It is probable we will see the systematic dismantling of the welfare state. Dismissed as ‘EU red tape’, workers’ rights, and indeed our human rights, will be severely under threat.

On the world stage we will now be shunned by other nations in Europe, concerned that the contagion may spread.

Your correspondent Gordon Tomlinson wrote of the “world lining up to trade with us”. It actually appears most people in other countries are either full of pity or disbelief that a country would willingly choose to decimate its economy.

June 23 will ultimately go down as a black day in our history.

I wonder if people who voted ‘leave’ truly understood what would happen to the economy if the ‘Leave’ campaign prevailed.

Gillian Telford