Dear Mr Starmer
Having written to you previously on the matter of Brexit and the EU, and having received no response whatever, I feel compelled to try again.
As a Remainer and now something of a stuck record, I’m NOT trying to make a case for Rejoining. It’s more that I’m baffled by your complete lack - as far as I'm aware - of explaining in any detail your thinking behind NOT Rejoining.
Perhaps we are replaying the Emperor’s New Clothes, and it’s perfectly obvious to anyone with unbiased, objective eyes that the Emperor is naked. There are NO discernible, tangible, measurable benefits to Brexit. Only disadvantages - to trade, our economy, to security, to education, to freedom of travel, to our standing in the world. And - whisper it - to the EU itself. Unlike the sceptical and myopic Brexiteers who immediately ask, “What would the EU demand of us?”, I prefer to ask what contribution in the broadest sense are the EU missing by our absence? If our much-vaunted history of diplomacy and cleverness is so great, surely we are being neglectful in refusing to share it with our nearest neighbours?
Meanwhile, we scrape economically along. Apart from jet engines (Rolls-Royce) and diggers (JCB) we have virtually no heavy, saleable homegrown industry. We build cars only for other nationality owners. We gave away our best world-class chip-maker (ARM) for peanuts. Our wind farms rely substantially on German (Siemens) components. Even our mass market confectionery and brewing industry are now dominated by foreign ownership. This week we apparently “discovered” AI - the ’new’ Saviour. Great!! With it we can be 'world-beating’ - it’s just that the US and China are already leading the race. So how long do we have to wait before ‘working people’ feel the benefits in their pockets? Those that still have a post-AI job, that is.
Banging-on endlessly about 'growth’ is not going to magically make it happen, is it, be honest?
Yes, we can talk about ‘red lines’ and ‘resetting’ our relationship with the EU - but, come on, what does that ACTUALLY mean, beyond soundbite speak? There are now 27 countries in the EU, the nearest just over 20 miles away, with all of whom we must be at a trading/cultural/diplomatic disadvantage. We have excluded ourselves from the Club. Outside in the cold. Going it alone, and with a bunch of lunatics about to run the American asylum and a ’special relationship’ that is long up the spout. And China - the World No 2 - is over 5,000 miles away, and is run by a bunch of ruthless flinthearts. Good luck with them!
And we have our own bunch of lunatics at home in the shape of Reform, who are great at finding fault, and running lucrative side scams, but who couldn’t actually run a country in a million years. It's really quite difficult, isn't it?
So against this background, what is your case - in detail - for refusing to even properly and publicly examine the case for Rejoining? And to let us in on the secret? Is it really because of a few grumpy Northern 'red-wall’ voters, who can’t see beyond the end of their noses? Is it because you are so concerned to protect the glorious ‘democratic’ outcome of the resounding (!?) 52:48% outcome of the shabby Referendum organised by your incompetent, self-serving chums in the Tory Opposition? And just what Damascene revelation caused you to turn your coat and switch sides to embrace such an apparently shoddy, threadbare outcome?
It must surely be pretty persuasive, so - as the person charged with looking after the well-being of all of us - ‘working people’ et al - please share it with us. It’s your sworn duty, surely?
Come on, we’re all grown-ups. You can tell us.
Yours,
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