The PM attending the new European Political Forum is a positive step - Yorkshire Post Letters

Assuming that the intention isn’t to stifle the creature at birth, it is good news that the Prime Minister plans to attend the inaugural meeting in Prague of the new European Political Forum and all the more so since it is the idea of French President Macron, the nemesis of the Brexiteers.

The forum’s aim is to create a space which allows all democratic European states both to discuss ways of dealing with pan-European issues such as migration and energy and plan future priorities without having to be bound by the requirement to uphold collective decisions arising from membership of organisations such as the EU.

Britain remains a committed member of the Council of Europe which it helped establish in 1949 and which contrary to popular belief inspired the human rights convention (ECHR). The UK is also one of the two leading powers in Europe and works closely with France, Germany and Italy to constitute the European wing of the G7

It is to be hoped that this pleasing initiative might be the start of the long way home into a leading role within European institutions and that Britain’s self-imposed exile might be ending. A further change of attitude in London which might allow youth from all European countries to live and work, study and travel in the UK without hassle with reciprocal arrangements for our young people would be welcome.

I am yet to meet a fellow citizen who maintains that a French lad or German lass working in Leeds threatens national sovereignty which sadly remains official UK dogma. Making young fellow Europeans feel welcome would be both a symbolic and practical way of placing Britain again at the heart of Europe. Why would anyone oppose it?