### Reader’s Letter to The Guardian, 27th August 2024 ###
Dear Editor,
I read your report on Keir Starmer’s move to improve relations with Europe (The Guardian, 27th August 2024, link below) which includes visits to Paris and to Germany. Here I agree that good relations with Europe are certainly desirable but worry that maybe too many people are, as a reaction to Brexit, currently seeing Europe through rather too rosy-coloured spectacles.
I was devastated that Britain left the EU but was also angered by the fact that Brussels left David Cameron in the lurch, giving him few concessions and therefore no leverage to argue to remain (link to Friedrich Merz article below). Indeed, this form of “ivory-tower arrogance” (of Brussels) is becoming more prevalent …
At the moment Europe is steaming ahead with the “monolithic Europe” project proposing consolidation of debt (Euro-bonds) and joint armed forces. Things which makes me shudder when I consider some of the crazy decisions which have come out of Brussels (most recently bottle-caps which remain attached).
And, on a moral front, with a blinkered, lock-step approach to the Ukraine war (i.e. no diplomacy, just more weapons) and a deafening silence on the slaughter going on in Gaza, the EU is busy plumbing the absolute depths.
I do regret Brexit but maybe, rather than begging to be let back into the “corporate lobby-frenzy” which is Brussels, Britain would do better to try to go its own way and maybe start to “re-localise” its economy: That might not be such a bad thing when we look at the current mess (e.g. wars, exploitation and supply-issues) which rampant, rapacious globalisation seems to have got us into.
Yours,
Alan Mitcham
Link to original article: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/27/keir-starmer-vows-to-turn-a-corner-on-brexit-before-germany-trip
Link to Friedrich Merz’s statement on Brexit: https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/international/cdu-chef-friedrich-merz-gibt-deutschland-mitschuld-am-brexit/100037029.html
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