Can P Dawson (Will Boris accept the blame for no deal?, Letters, August 9) tell me what chaos will follow our crashing out of the EU on October 31? Does he have inside information, as nobody knows what will happen until it happens.

After the referendum vote in 2016 the remainer chancellor George Osborne predicted a credit crisis worse than 2008. Did it happen? No. Many businesses said a leave vote would lead to them taking their businesses out of the UK. Did it happen? No. Not one person preaching project fear would be willing to walk into a bookmaker and put their house, savings etc on whether this will happen or that will happen. They, like you and me, simply wont know until November 1. I still think in the end the EU will buckle and give us a deal. But then again, who knows?

David Armitage,

Willow Place, Knaresborough

Predictions of doom are just Project Fear

Immediately after the Brexit referendum the disgruntled Remainers prophesied an immediate recession of our GDP by up to 10 per cent, obviously hoping that our economy would collapse. The opposite happened, with continual growth until the last quarter’s 0.2 per cent decrease.

The doom-laden rhetoric of those predicting a catastrophe when we leave the EU will similarly prove to be another Project Fear non-event.

Geoff Robb,

Hunters Close,

Dunnington, York

Government’s list of British businesses at risk

According to Brexiteers we will be better off after Brexit. This was their reason for voting Brexit!

It has now been revealed that Boris Johnson is drawing up plans for a bailout fund to prop up businesses in the event of a no-deal Brexit amid fears that the economy is on the cusp of a recession.

The government has drawn up a secret list of big British employers that are considered most at risk, with the worst affected expected to be in the construction and manufacturing sectors.

At least we now know where the so-called £350 million a week saving (in itself a lie) will be spent: and it isn’t the NHS!

Surely now even the most hardened Brexiteers should be wondering if they may have made a mistake.

Tony Taylor, Grassholme, Woodthorpe, York

European Union hasn’t destroyed our orchards

What has the EU done for the UK? asks EL Thompson (Letters, August 6) and attempts to answer with a few examples - all negative, all easily disproved.

How can you say the EU ‘destroyed our orchards’ when UK sales of homegrown apples increased 40 per cent in a decade?

The prevalence of imports is consumer-driven. The British have a taste for foreign varieties but most of these are from Australia and New Zealand, as a glance at supermarket shelves will tell you.

Likewise the relocation and changes of ownership in the fishing and manufacturing industries are a result of domestic decisions. France and Germany cannot just ‘swamp’ our markets and ‘plunder’ our resources any more than we can theirs. You can, however, be sure that, if Brexit happens, more British firms will move to EU27 countries to escape increased costs and slowed production, as well as to keep access to the single market … some of them have already left.

The EU doesn’t dictate which countries’ products we import. Through membership we are signed up to over 40 trade deals around the world. So far the government has secured the continuation of only a quarter.

Brexiters claim that they are motivated by patriotism and not xenophobia. Sweeping assertions, unsupported by evidence, such as those in E L Thompson’s letter, suggest otherwise.

Richard Brown,

Horseman Avenue

Copmanthorpe, York