The EU’s new trade deal with South America will put ‘global Britain’ to shame

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A recent piece of news that largely passed under the radar, such is the UK’s Brexit obsession, was the fact that the EU and South American economic bloc Mercosur has clinched a huge trade deal after 20 years of negotiations.

It is the EU’s biggest deal to date and aims to cut or remove trade tariffs, making imported products cheaper for consumers while also boosting exports for companies on both sides.

The agreement is set to create a market for goods and services covering nearly 800 million consumers, making it the largest in the world in terms of population. It should be noted that the EU is already Mercosur’s biggest trade and investment partner.

A matter of days later, adding to the irony, the EU and Vietnam signed a long-awaited free trade deal that will slash duties on almost all goods.

Both these deals neatly highlight that the EU is one of the world’s great global trading powers, and follow recently concluded trade deals with Japan, South Korea and Canada.

As an EU member state the UK automatically benefits from 40 trade agreements the EU has in place with more than 70 countries. These are trade agreements that on leaving the EU the UK will have to renegotiate, in a world that is becoming increasingly protectionist.

So, while Brexiteers talk of a “global Britain” that will trade freely with the rest of the world, they will soon find out, to the detriment of us all, that not only will this take a considerable amount of time, but any terms agreed will not come close to being a match when compared with the benefits we currently enjoy as members of the EU.

Alex Orr
Edinburgh

Time is running out

Zero carbon emission by 2050 or sooner is now an imperative. To achieve this will require all new car sales to be for electric vehicles only by 2030. So the first step the government should take is to switch all subsidies and tax breaks for the petrochemical industry to renewables and research on battery production.

Companies such as Shell and BP have begun to invest in an electric future but they continue to invest far too heavily in the search for new sources of oil and gas. Research and development takes time and it is time that is now running out faster than oil supplies.

Andrew Erskine
Abergavenny

Health of the nation

Having just read the letter referring to Ofsted’s role in the crisis in our schools along with the front page item on mental health in children, I wonder if any research had been done into a possible connection?

Valerie Morgan
Leigh-on-Sea

A second vote in Streatham

Streatham’s first Liberal Democrat MP, Chuka Umunna, ruled out calling a by-election and claims he has his consitituents’ backing. Chuka never ceases to promote the cause of a people’s vote when it comes to Brexit negotiations, but he is noticeably allergic to the prospect of calling a people’s vote of Streatham with regard to his own seat.

The Liberal Democrat policies are very different from the Labour policies under which he was elected in June 2017. As he himself noted earlier that same year: “Whatever common ground we may have with Lib Dems and some Tories on Brexit, I can’t forgive what they have done to my area.”

Alastair Hamilton, Streatham Conservative Association Chair

How Corbyn can sell a Final Say

May I offer Jeremy Corbyn a speech for his rallies when the next general election is called – that is, if he is still leader of the Labour Party: “Yes, I do want Brexit. But I also want to listen to my base, to you, the people who care about social democracy (call it Marxism if you want) and I would want you to have the right to vote on any deal I might bring to the table regarding Brexit. I also want to give everyone else – independents, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Greens and Brexit voters – that opportunity. Because I am a democrat, because I am a socialist, because I am a Marxist I will bring the Brexit deal back to the country for your approval.”

If enough Brexit believers are still out there, they will vote for it again, and the UK will be doubly sure it is the right thing to do.

Alison Hackett
Dun Laoghaire, Ireland

There’s no convincing some people

In response to the question posed by Alison de Ledesma in yesterday’s letters, “Are all those who have used and benefited from homeopathy gullible and misled?” The answer is and will remain an unequivocal yes.

There is as little point, however, in trying to persuade advocates of homeopathy of the sheer stupidity of their trust in mystic remedies as there is in trying to argue the unfounded tenets of religion with zealots. Fixed belief systems are not amenable to change, despite appearing ludicrous to unblinkered outsiders.

Yours, happy with allopathy, atheism, science and evidence.

Alistair Vincent
Barnet