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| EEA membership could bridge the Brexit divide | EEA membership could bridge the Brexit divide |
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| UK membership of the European Economic Area is the only policy that respects the referendum and delivers a “jobs-first Brexit” (Boris Johnson attacks Theresa May’s ‘crazy’ customs plan, 8 May). It removes the threat of an Irish border by allowing EU-wide frictionless free trade. It does not require membership of the common agriculture and fishing policies, monetary union (euro), or adherence to the European court of justice. | UK membership of the European Economic Area is the only policy that respects the referendum and delivers a “jobs-first Brexit” (Boris Johnson attacks Theresa May’s ‘crazy’ customs plan, 8 May). It removes the threat of an Irish border by allowing EU-wide frictionless free trade. It does not require membership of the common agriculture and fishing policies, monetary union (euro), or adherence to the European court of justice. |
| Significantly for the Labour party, it does not block state aid whose purpose is “to promote the economic development of areas where the standard of living is abnormally low or where there is serious underemployment”. EEA membership respects the wishes of the majority of Labour members and voters who voted remain, and in no way blocks Jeremy Corbyn’s desire to use state aid and nationalisation to promote economic and social policies within the UK. | Significantly for the Labour party, it does not block state aid whose purpose is “to promote the economic development of areas where the standard of living is abnormally low or where there is serious underemployment”. EEA membership respects the wishes of the majority of Labour members and voters who voted remain, and in no way blocks Jeremy Corbyn’s desire to use state aid and nationalisation to promote economic and social policies within the UK. |
| On the one issue that dares not speak its name, the EEA allows limits to freedom of movement. Tory Brexiters may also be won over because EEA membership opts out of any “common trade policy”, allowing Liam Fox to continue his worldwide junket to secure new trade deals outside of the EU. The House of Lords vote to allow EEA membership must be passed, as it is the one policy that can bridge the leave/remain fissure that is so badly damaging this country.Prof Eric GoodyerBirsay, Orkney | On the one issue that dares not speak its name, the EEA allows limits to freedom of movement. Tory Brexiters may also be won over because EEA membership opts out of any “common trade policy”, allowing Liam Fox to continue his worldwide junket to secure new trade deals outside of the EU. The House of Lords vote to allow EEA membership must be passed, as it is the one policy that can bridge the leave/remain fissure that is so badly damaging this country.Prof Eric GoodyerBirsay, Orkney |
| • Jonathan Freedland is spot on with his analysis (Labour fudge over Brexit once worked. But it can’t go on, 5 May) for three reasons. First, as Freedland says, “In politics, ‘neither one thing nor another’ has limited appeal; before long it begins to look a lot like nothing”. In the upcoming Commons debates Labour must grasp the single market, as it has the customs union, and forge a distinct policy that combines its historic internationalism with a revived economy, social justice and environmentalism. | • Jonathan Freedland is spot on with his analysis (Labour fudge over Brexit once worked. But it can’t go on, 5 May) for three reasons. First, as Freedland says, “In politics, ‘neither one thing nor another’ has limited appeal; before long it begins to look a lot like nothing”. In the upcoming Commons debates Labour must grasp the single market, as it has the customs union, and forge a distinct policy that combines its historic internationalism with a revived economy, social justice and environmentalism. |
| Second, as Thomas Piketty told a packed lecture hall in Oxford on 25 April, class politics is being replaced worldwide by identity politics. Of course Labour has concerns about losing its traditional working-class base in the Midlands and north, but, as Piketty argues, people are decreasingly voting on class lines. There is no point in chasing after leavers after the Tories have hoovered up Ukip voters and are now the party of Brexit. Labour must make a completely different offer. | Second, as Thomas Piketty told a packed lecture hall in Oxford on 25 April, class politics is being replaced worldwide by identity politics. Of course Labour has concerns about losing its traditional working-class base in the Midlands and north, but, as Piketty argues, people are decreasingly voting on class lines. There is no point in chasing after leavers after the Tories have hoovered up Ukip voters and are now the party of Brexit. Labour must make a completely different offer. |
| Third, it is ever clearer that Brexit is going tits up. Either the Tory right and the Daily Mail will bamboozle Theresa May into a hard Brexit with disastrous consequences, or the EU will force Britain to cleave closer to Europe in its negotiations this year, as it did in December. Either way, the Labour party will be waiting.Robert GildeaProfessor of modern history, University of Oxford | Third, it is ever clearer that Brexit is going tits up. Either the Tory right and the Daily Mail will bamboozle Theresa May into a hard Brexit with disastrous consequences, or the EU will force Britain to cleave closer to Europe in its negotiations this year, as it did in December. Either way, the Labour party will be waiting.Robert GildeaProfessor of modern history, University of Oxford |
| • Matthew D’Ancona (Tories must resist declaring peak Corbyn, 7 May) patronisingly describing Ukip voters as “implacable” was beyond the pale: “No Brexit will be hard enough, no immigration reform tough enough, no recoil from progress fierce enough to please them”. In 2014, 4.4 million people voted for Ukip in the European parliament elections, the highest percentage of any party. Today, that party is all but dead precisely because those 4.4 million people decided that it has got them the referendum they craved. Now, those very same people are in the driving seat forcing parliament, which voted eight out of 10 to remain in the EU, to do the opposite and leave the EU. Far from being “implacable”, they knew how to use a despicable party to its own advantage when all other “respectable” parties turned their backs on them.Fawzi IbrahimLondon | • Matthew D’Ancona (Tories must resist declaring peak Corbyn, 7 May) patronisingly describing Ukip voters as “implacable” was beyond the pale: “No Brexit will be hard enough, no immigration reform tough enough, no recoil from progress fierce enough to please them”. In 2014, 4.4 million people voted for Ukip in the European parliament elections, the highest percentage of any party. Today, that party is all but dead precisely because those 4.4 million people decided that it has got them the referendum they craved. Now, those very same people are in the driving seat forcing parliament, which voted eight out of 10 to remain in the EU, to do the opposite and leave the EU. Far from being “implacable”, they knew how to use a despicable party to its own advantage when all other “respectable” parties turned their backs on them.Fawzi IbrahimLondon |
| • To all Irish nationalists, north and south, the border is a wound. To unionists it is a bulwark that ensures they are safe within the UK. On its own the Good Friday agreement could never have reconciled these polarities. It worked because both sides were in the EU, which made the border an irrelevant line on a map not worth fighting over. | • To all Irish nationalists, north and south, the border is a wound. To unionists it is a bulwark that ensures they are safe within the UK. On its own the Good Friday agreement could never have reconciled these polarities. It worked because both sides were in the EU, which made the border an irrelevant line on a map not worth fighting over. |
| Once the UK leaves the EU, however trade across the border is managed, it again becomes a symbol of the hurt of centuries. For decades after the establishment of Stormont there were restrictions, and for a time even nationality checks, between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain. A technological solution to customs barriers will work where the sea is the border. But the island of Ireland remaining within the customs union would give unionists the best of both economic worlds. Unlike most other UK nationals they will also retain their European citizenship as dual Irish/UK nationals; a distinction they don’t abhor.Phelim J BradyNormandy, Surrey | Once the UK leaves the EU, however trade across the border is managed, it again becomes a symbol of the hurt of centuries. For decades after the establishment of Stormont there were restrictions, and for a time even nationality checks, between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain. A technological solution to customs barriers will work where the sea is the border. But the island of Ireland remaining within the customs union would give unionists the best of both economic worlds. Unlike most other UK nationals they will also retain their European citizenship as dual Irish/UK nationals; a distinction they don’t abhor.Phelim J BradyNormandy, Surrey |
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