Letters
The rights and wrongs of Withdrawal Bill I agree with Adrian Fisher. The Withdrawal Bill should be scrapped for all reasons he mentions. Also, UK and EU musicians and artistes and actors should be allowed to wander at will across the the UK and EU to perform as they have done so for 40 years as messers Elton John and Roger Daltry demand. Also, our exporters and importers should also have tariff and cost free access to EU markets as is their right. And our fishermen and women should also be allowed to carry on as they were. And I too should be allowed to drive on French roads without the need for more red tape in the form of expensive insurance and international drivers licence. And I should also have the right to work and live in the EU as I used to enjoy. Better still let’s rejoin the EU. Garry Barker n I sympathise with Adrian Fisher MBE regarding the difficulties of doing business with Northern Ireland following the end of the Brexit transition period (Business Opinion edition 11 Feb 19). However, I think his anger is misdirected at the EU. It takes two to make an agreement. We can’t blame the other side for negotiating hard in their own interests, no matter how unreasonable we may feel they have been. Boris Johnson did not have to sign the Withdrawal Agreement and subsequent trade deal which have caused these problems. He repeatedly told us that he was prepared to walk away without an agreement or trade deal and that no deal was better than a bad deal, so he must be happy with them. Indeed on Christmas Eve he told the nation that he had got everything he wanted from the negotiations. Despite what Mr Johnson told us at the time, there was always going to have to be a trade-off between sovereignty and the economy in leaving the EU. In the end, he chose to prioritise sovereignty over 34
Cartoon by Lyndon Wall justsocaricatures.co.uk
the economy at least in the short to medium term (indicated as 10 years by Dominic Raab on the Andrew Marr show on the BBC). Theresa May’s proposed withdrawal agreement prioritised the economy at the expense of some degree of sovereignty and would have avoided the problems described by Mr Fisher, but our elected representatives in Parliament chose not to support her. Mr Fisher’s anger should be directed at Boris Johnson and all the MPs who voted against Mrs May’s proposed withdrawal agreement. Dr Gordon Lethbridge Sherborne n As Adrian Fisher correctly observes in his opinion piece (19/2/21), the UK voted to leave the EU. It was the decision of the Conservative government that we should also have nothing to do with the Single Market, but would instead have to accept all the regulations, forms and impediments that come with being
a third country and that are causing him and his business colleagues so much trouble and expense at the moment. It was the decision of Boris Johnson’s Conservative government to put a customs border in the Irish Sea, and Johnson’s claim that of course this would not involve any more bureaucracy or restrictions was either astonishing ignorance or a lie. The EU has certainly not covered itself in glory over vaccines and triggering article 16, but the blame for our current situation rests firmly with the government and their cheerleaders in the media. It is unclear to me how Mr Fisher’s preferred solution of ripping up even the limited trade agreement we have with the EU would make things any better. Neville Morley Castle Cary n In response to the inclusion of Adrian Fisher’s anti- EU spread in last week’s Opinion column I feel the need to remind readers that the
2016 referendum results showed Northern Ireland as 55.8% in favour of remaining in the EU, well behind Scotland but well ahead of England and Wales. It was Westminster that decided that regional differences should be ignored and the overall result of just 600,000 vote swing voters, equivalent to a city the size of Bristol, decided the outcome of the UK vote. We have all been alerted to the danger of an Irish Sea Border since early 2017 as raised by the DUP vociferously, particularly Ian Paisley Jnr, at the time. It is plainly ridiculous for Boris Johnson, who in 2016 finally decided to campaign to Leave then developed his campaign resulting in the 2019 election to PM, should not be aware of the play of politics. Mr Fisher blames the entirety of this mess upon the EU but that is obviously wrong. There are two parties in every bi-lateral negotiation so Mr Johnson is also to blame, and probably more so as he was the protagonist in the original argument. I agree, we should never have been in this mess. It was a total mess from the start, from the date that the Tory party got scared of their own minority back-benchers, themselves stirred up by the upstart Nigel Farage. If Mr. Fisher voted for Brexit then he must count the cost. I didn’t, but still count the cost, not just personally, to the whole of the U.K. Adrian, think again, think of the 55.8% of the voters in Northern Ireland who didn’t even want any of this to start with! This rot started, and remains, at the core, in Westminster, in the rank & file members thereof. Tim Hargreaves Gillingham n I used to read the old magazine each week but then gave up as it was all adverts etc. This week I picked up a copy and was pleasantly surprised at the change. I have just spent an enjoyable
