Lack of progress on EU trade deal is worrying

Britain's transition exit from the European Union is due to end on December 31. Photo: Steve Parsons/PA Wire

YOUR report highlighting the importance of European Union trade to the region’s manufacturers will have made disturbing reading for anyone still drooling at the thought of a no-deal Brexit in December (Manufacturing ‘remains key to local economy’, The Yorkshire Post, July 6).

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Given how badly UK-EU trade talks are apparently going, Make UK/BDO’s survey should worry all of us. Groups such as Leeds for Europe and the national European Movement UK had made a “one crisis at a time” call to extend our EU transition beyond the end of this year, but the Government let that opportunity lapse at the end of June.

One supermarket says it will not sell chlorinated chicken if there's a trade deal between Britain and America after Brexit. Photo: Nick Ansell/PA Wire

Steve Talbot, head of manufacturing at BDO in Yorkshire and the Humber, spelt out why an extension would have been sensible: “The region’s manufacturers were already facing huge uncertainty over the UK’s future trading relationships, even before the seismic shock of Covid-19.” With an extension no longer on the table, pandemic or not, the Government now urgently needs to conclude an EU trade deal.

Leavers like to adorn themselves in the Union Jack. But the true patriots are those of us concerned about British jobs and our country’s economic wellbeing.

From: Martyn Gamble, Easingwold.

WHAT great news in many newspapers that Aldi will never sell chlorinated chicken or hormone-fed beef but will only sell British chicken and beef in support of Britain’s farmers (The Yorkshire Post, July 7).

Hopefully other supermarkets will follow their lead and keep us all, and our agriculture, both healthy and prosperous.

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James Mitchinson

Editor

Lack of progress on EU trade deal is worrying - Yorkshire Post Letters