Does an incoming Labour government want to become associated with Brexit failure? - Yorkshire Post Letters

New Confederation of British Industry chief Rupert Soames says business and government must work together after “a decade of disruption and distraction” (Churchill’s grandson to be CBI president, The Yorkshire Post, December 6).

I imagine he really means a likely Labour government…not Rishi Sunak’s lame duck administration. Some of the problems Mr Soames points to – such as Covid and inflation – weren’t the direct fault of the Conservative government, although the consequences of how ministers reacted to them are a different matter.

But the full blame for Brexit and its associated labour shortages can undoubtedly be laid at the government’s door.

Does an incoming Labour government want to become associated with this failure?

Because if Labour gains power next year and doesn’t do all it can to undo the damage of Brexit then it will share in the blame for further disruption for another decade-or-more.

Hopefully, an influential CBI led by Mr Soames will lobby Labour hard to revisit its flawed “Make Brexit Work” policy.

Brexit’s not done with us. On the same day you reported Mr Soames’s appointment, manufacturers’ representative group Make UK reported that 90 per cent of businesses are still seeing post-Brexit trade with the EU27 disrupted.

This closely mirrors the November 18 findings of our parent body, European Movement UK (of which I’m national Vice Chair): 94 per cent of firms report having been adversely impacted by our leaving the European Single Market and Customs Union.

Incidentally, the European Movement was founded by Mr Soames’s grandfather, Sir Winston Churchill - a great European.