Labour should push to rejoin single market in new Brexit policy – Yorkshire Post Letters

AUSTIN Mitchell, unusually, aims very wide of the target (The Yorkshire Post June 3).

I would urge the former MP for Grimsby to attack the Tories rather than Labour.

Why Labour must embrace Brexit and stop sulking – Austin Mitchell

The EU is unlikely to weaken its position relative to Britain by accepting unfavourable changes to the treaties, which is what Austin is advising Labour to push for.

Unlike Britain, the EU has not rammed itself up the creek without a paddle and does not have to go as a beggar in 
search of one-sided trade
deals with far-flung bits of a former empire.

The EU can spend as long as necessary negotiating from a position of strength and with time on its side grinding 
out more balanced deals 
with the world’s largest markets.

Brexit was folly on an unimaginable scale and commentators of Austin’s experience and importance should be telling it the way it 
is, rather than urging the 
Labour leadership to join the charade.

We need Britain’s existing and future businesses to sell hi-tech stuff and services to nearby foreign businesses and consumers with the money to buy it; such buyers are overwhelmingly in the 
EU countries and the Government’s priority must therefore be to improve relations with them.

Re-joining the single market would be a good first step.

That’s what Austin should be telling Labour to push for.

From: Michael Meadowcroft, Former Liberal MP, Leeds.

THE letter by David Craggs is yet another example of British voters blaming everyone but themselves (The Yorkshire Post, June 1).

The very sad post-Brexit disaster of the UK fishing industry comes as a direct consequence of believing the wholly misleading propaganda 
of the 2016 Leave campaign. A few Cornish fishermen saw through it and urged their colleagues to vote Remain but they were ignored. The issue of being able to determine how much fish can be caught was always only the smaller question.

A far bigger issue was, and is, where the fish can be sold, the vast majority of which went to markets in EU countries.

It is hardly surprising that if a country voluntarily opts out of being a member of the largest market that exists, the rest of the countries in the EU are going to protect their markets. Does Mr Craggs really believe that one can leave a tennis club but still continue to play on its courts?

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