'We’re being led like lemmings'

I am grateful to Mr True (Chronicle and Echo, 9 July) for putting the Leave argument, actually the extreme Leave argument, because neither the Leave Campaign nor the Government have claimed that No Deal is better than a deal.

We will always be trading with and allied to the countries of the EU and so deals will have to be made whatever. He is oblivious to our complete integration in the EU economy and the enormous disruption looming on December 31; and to the fact that our EU neighbours include most of the democratic and law abiding countries on who we increasingly rely in a world full of dictators and populist leaders and with increasing threats to important international institutions and agreements.

Trade with China, post Coronavirus and post Hong Kong, on Chinese terms, looks uncomfortable. Trade with the USA, again on their terms, will never replace our trade inside the EU. The oncoming world recession makes sticking together with our European partners a sensible option. The future has never been so uncertain.

Global warming, flying restrictions put a premium on more local markets.

I am grateful to Mr True because so many

of his arguments are so easily demolished.

There were not repeated votes for Brexit, and never for a No Deal. The General Elections, European Election and Local Government Elections gave a very mixed answer to a question that was not asked. But generally there was more support for parties that at least offered a second referendum. The 2016 vote and the 2019 election were won on the backs of misleading but plausible soundbites – “Take back control” and “Get Brexit done” – neither has happened or willbe valid after December 31. Leavers have voted from a concept of British exceptionalism, but the real motivators of Brexit were the international money-movers who feared the EU might regulate their overseas and tax-avoiding wealth.

His portrait of the EU: protectionist yes, but offering generous terms to the poorest nations; closer political and military union.

Coronavirus? Nations run health services, while the EU is doing its best to get them to cooperate on the economic recovery –but despite what Leavers say the EU does not have overreaching power – and no EU country has a worse record than ours in dealing with the pandemicIt is not the EU that needs to see sense, it is Leavers and especially the current LeaveUK cabal in No 10 which calls itself a

government. Mr True’s letter could have been written in 2016 and is the same litany preached by the Leave campaign before and since, not rooted in reality then or since, and even less realistic today. And it seems there is little we can do about it as all our Northamptonshire MPs,

lead us like lemmings towards December 31.

Hugh Legge

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