I have read with some interest and amusement the letters from Phillip Griffiths published in the Globe on July 15 and 22.
We are definitely going to leave the EU, but, like most ardent and blinkered Brexiteers he seems to assume that the world will be falling over itself to trade with this country.
He mentioned Australia and New Zealand, for instance.
Australia certainly, and, I think, New Zealand also, have their biggest trade and investment deals with the EU.
They are not realistically going to sacrifice these for a comprehensive deal with us that goes above any existing terms.
Indeed, official government figures suggest that a new trade deal with either or both would have a purely minimal impact on our GDP.
If we leave without a sensible deal (which, actually, I hope and believe won’t happen whatever the noises from both sides ), where will that leave us?
We are distancing ourselves – rightly – from China and, in an increasingly isolated state without the EU, will have little alternative but to sign up to whatever terms the US will wish to impose.
Do we then become a dumping ground for substandard and often unhealthy US goods and an open market for its predatory private health care providers and pharmaceutical companies, to name but one sector? We would also be in danger of becoming a subservient partner to its quite appalling foreign policy.
Admittedly, if, as I pray happens, Trump does not get re-elected, things might not be quite as catastrophic.In the real world a deal needs to be made and I hope even Johnson is capable of understanding this.
Perhaps if he sent Cummings to Barnard Castle again for a few months this might help.
Steve Wheeler, by email
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