The Trump administration will want us to follow a much more economically liberal path - Yorkshire Post Letters

I want to thank your correspondent M K O’Sullivan of Allerton Bywater (The Yorkshire Post, December 7) for describing me as ‘longing for a lost Euthopia’ as I am proud to say that this is an apt, accurate and appropriate description. I would gladly see Euthiopia on my passport cover, irrespective of its colour.

That’s the fun bit out of the way now let’s reflect on your correspondent’s assertion that the election of Donald Trump is a purely American matter. That’s true concerning for example abortion rights, although they are largely determined by the individual states. However, the US has signed treaties which other countries can rightly expect to see upheld unless renegotiated irrespective of who is in the White House.

Your writer is disingenuous in stating that the choice American voters made isn’t our business. Policies introduced by the Trump administration will make it our business. Hence his acolyte Stephen Moore’s comment that the UK will be more prosperous and enjoy better trade relations with the US if we were to follow America’s much more economically liberal path.

Recent surveys in the UK popular press indicate that there is more support for Britain positioning itself closer to Europe than to the unbridled capitalism (and cronyism) of the incoming US administration.

I don’t know if it’s mischief-making or a simple failure to grasp how the EU works but yes when we rejoin, we will at some point hopefully adopt the Euro. It’s interesting that Marine Le Pen’s ‘far right’ National Rally are no longer advocating that France re-establish the franc – surveys indicate strong support for the Euro.

What opinion polls don’t show is any support for France handing over its nuclear arsenal to a putative European defence authority. Nor would the UK be required to. The suggestion is a Eurosceptic strawman.

The complete free trade deal that the UK foolishly renounced made us richer but my enthusiasm for the EU derives from the personal, social, cultural, linguistic and scientific benefits accrued as citizens enjoy the life enhancing benefits of freedom of movement.

Young British people have lost these cherished rights, unless they happen to live in Northern Ireland.