Letter; Keep on digging

To take an extreme example, some owners of Spanish holiday homes, which they hoped to retire to, actually admitted to voting Brexit and now find they can’t retire.

The second group are those who did so more thoughtfully, expecting that, in the long run, it would lead to say better pay for the less skilled workers, more control over immigration and more freedom to adapt to a rapidly changing world.

What they could not, of course, have foreseen was the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

However, the Northern Ireland problem was glossed over, as was the fact that, with a slowing economy, owing to a hopefully temporary reduction in trade, whilst we struck new trade agreements (not working out that!), there would be less appetite for investment, which would mean that British productivity, which was already poor, would become even worse.

The question now is what to do about it?

The government’s solution is austerity with no plan for encouraging investment or for boosting productivity.

The IMF says our economy is headed for the rocks and will be even worse than Russia’s. The government begs to differ.

Neither has a crystal ball, but I know who I think is more likely to be proved right!

So, what would I do about it?

Well, like the man said, judging by were you want to get to, I have to say that I would not have started from here!

We need to get away from the them-and-us attitude that was so evident in the Brexit vote and later clouded people’s minds with the slogan of ‘Get Brexit done!’ leading to an overwhelming Tory victory by a bored electorate.

The reason that Brexit was not done was because it was and still is very complicated. We are far from ‘done’ even now.

So, I ask you, what would you do if you dug yourself a hole and couldn’t get out of it?

Would you keep on digging, or shout for a rope?

Put bluntly, we probably need to join the queue behind Turkey (to get back in).

As the Iron Lady said, there is no alternative.

Chris Carter

Oldfield Road, Sheffield, S6