Reader letters for and against extension to Brexit transition period

This week, another correspondent responded, has written in opposition to the suggestion.

We have printed both letters below – send us your views on this, or any other topical issue, to [email protected]

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Letter from: John Wilton, York Road, Chichester

This is an open letter to Gillian Keegan MP. We are now approaching the critical deadline for the UK to request an extension of the Brexit transition period of up to two additional years beyond the end of 2020.

Best for Britain has commissioned a report from the Social Market Foundation on the double impact of Brexit and coronavirus. The Social Market Foundation is a cross-party think-tank with charitable status. Its charitable object is the education of the public in the economic and political sciences.

This report establishes the fiscal and social necessity of extending transition. For the full report visit www.smf.co.uk and I urge you to find time to look at it.

I totally accept that the Government and the whole country has rightly been focusing on coping with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic , but it is absolutely critical to the long-term future of us all that our long-term arrangements with the EU for after the transition period ends are properly dealt with.

The simple truth is that our NHS cannot cope with both the effects of leaving the EU without a trade deal in place and Covid-19.

Leaving the European Union without a deal in place would cause:

- Delays in importing medicines and other essential medical equipment, including vital personal protective equipment;

- A weakening of the public health response, including the response to pandemics when we leave EU schemes without agreeing to partnerships with crucial EU bodies;

- Disruption of patient care due to the ending of reciprocal healthcare agreements

In addition, the International Monetary Fund has calculated that leaving without a deal would add a further permanent loss of five per cent to the UK’s GDP, and this is on top of the Office of Budget Responsibility predicting a 35 per cent shrink to the economy in the second quarter of 2020 because of damage already inflicted by coronavirus. This means thousands of jobs in and around Chichester are at risk of being lost.

Recent opinion polls indicate that a large majority of people in the UK support extending the transition period.

This isn’t about Brexit. It isn’t about who voted leave or remain. It is about doing what is in the national interest.

There will not be a lasting solution to the Covid-19 crisis by the end of the year. No responsible government would want deliberately to inflict more damage on the economy and more hardship on an already suffering public.

Please do everything you can, as our local MP and a Government minister, to support an extension to the Brexit transition period, so we can focus on getting the best deal possible and protecting the NHS.

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Letter from: Rory Murphy, Rothermead, Petworth

A letter last week asks for an extension (again) to the interminable refusal to follow the democratic will of the British people.

The writer claims that a large section of the populace now supports a delay but, surely, anyone watching the almost invisible EU input to the virus catastrophe will be less than impressed.

The shutters clanged shut from the Balkans to the Bay of Biscay as every government turned to their national priorities.

To be fair this is difficult to criticise – can you imagine Mrs Merkel going to, say, Munich and saying ‘I know you have coronavirus here but Naples really needs ventilators so you will have to go without’?

We are assured that medicine etc. will be delayed if we do as we voted for – leave.

Two of the biggest and most advanced chemical companies in the world (Astra and Glaxo) are based in this country.

I hardly see European countries refusing their products at the behest of some remote bureaucrat miles away in Brussels when, say, a relative has cancer where these are world-leaders. So reciprocity will be the outcome, I hope!

Secondly as we have recently seen when push comes to shove all governments will turn to their own electorate.

Lastly, a look at an example of the fallacy that EU companies won’t sell to us.

Novo Nordisk, which supplies much of our insulin, sells to Iran in a big way. Do Remainers really think it would rather sell to a pariah state, thousands of miles away, than to a close friend a few hundred miles away?

And so to the target of this letter. Ms Keegan was elected on a ‘get Brexit done’ ticket so… very little wriggle room I would say after such a resounding endorsement of the slogan.