Tony Galbraith, Hunter Road, Brough, East Yorkshire.

Judging from his letter (The Yorkshire Post, November 2) Peter Packham disagrees with my suggestion that we raise tariff and non-tariff barriers against imports from the EU, in order to give breathing room for UK manufacturing to recover from their damaging impact.

Mr Packham has a problem in that the EU agrees with me and not with him. The EU has never hesitated to take action to “protect the single market”.

The latest example, ironically, is over the import of Chinese cars which they are afraid will devastate their own vehicle manufacturers. This has already happened in the UK but by imports of cars from the EU, not China. If it is good enough for them it is good enough for us.

In 2016, the UK voted to leave the EU - but post-Brexit deals kept Northern Ireland in the EU's single market for goods.

placeholder image — In 2016, the UK voted to leave the EU - but post-Brexit deals kept Northern Ireland in the EU's single market for goods.

Mr Packham also claims that before Brexit, we benefitted from high levels of foreign direct investment and also from our participation in a system of supply chains criss-crossing international borders as part of manufacturing processes. In that case, he has to explain why we were making an annual balance of trade loss in goods of about £120 billion when we were a member of the EU.

If we were to re-join the EU, or even just the Single Market and Custom Union, the only prospect is further decline in manufacturing in the UK. That is one of the reasons it is not going to happen.