Letters to the Editor – week ending 22 March 2026

Read what people have been writing to our editor about this week. Find out how to share your own views here.

I want EU back?

Yes we should rejoin EU – leaving being good was a demonstrable lie and the majority know it. Plus moving closer to Europe when Trump and Putin threaten is desirable. 

Tim Cooper
Nottingham 

*****

Our London mayor clearly is calling for rejoining, and without a referendum.

Bonkers!

What we should be doing is making the most of our freedom from the EU’s ‘four pillars of neo-liberalism’ to rebuild our domestic industrial capacity, renationalise the privatised utilities and restore our infrastructure and public services.

What we should not do is revisit that awful post-2016 period when the Brexit issue sucked all the oxygen out of every political debate, we were all over the place, and we got smashed in elections.

Karl Stewart
Basingstoke CLP

*****

I found it hard to answer the little questionnaire about rejoining the EU. I was deeply dismayed when we left, and entirely supportive of current moves to increasingly align ourselves with EU rules. But I think we should tread cautiously while continuing to move in the right direction, especially while politics are so volatile (not that there is a big prospect of that changing!) Ask again in a year’s time!

Best wishes

Judith Fage

P.S. I completely dispute the statement, often made, that the EU referendum result indicated the ‘will of the people’. It indicated the will of not much more than one-third of the people, based on what has turned out to be inaccurate and incomplete information. Another just under one-third voted against leaving, and one third either didn’t care or (more likely) didn’t feel they had adequate information.

*****

As a Labour party member of 30 years standing. I’m definitely for rejoining the EU, but shouldn’t there be a commitment to a fresh referendum in the manifesto, rather than a commitment to rejoin?

Barrie Clement

*****

Hi there,

There is a point at which caution stops being prudence and starts becoming complicity. On Brexit, Labour is now firmly on the wrong side of that line.

Let’s be clear: Brexit is not a policy that has merely “underperformed” — it is a policy that has failed. Not in theory, not in partisan argument, but in measurable economic reality. Slower growth, reduced trade, weaker investment, and higher costs borne by businesses and households alike. An estimated loss of up to 8% of GDP is not a rounding error — it is a permanent scar on the country’s economic capacity.

And yet, despite this, Labour continues to speak in euphemisms — of “realignment”, of “improving the deal”, of cautious steps around the edges. This is not commensurate with the scale of the problem. It is a refusal to say plainly what is now obvious: erecting barriers with our largest and closest trading partner has made the UK poorer.

The great promise of Brexit — sovereignty, flexibility, global opportunity — has collided with reality. Regulatory “freedom” has delivered little of substance. Trade deals have been incremental. And in many sectors, the UK continues to follow EU rules in order to access EU markets, only now without any influence over them.

This is not taking back control. It is relinquishing it.

What is more concerning is the political timidity that now surrounds the issue. Labour appears to have internalised a narrative that Brexit cannot be meaningfully challenged because of a vote cast in 2016. But democracy is not an act of preservation; it is a process of judgement. When a policy demonstrably fails, the responsible course is not to defend it by silence, but to change it.

Public opinion has shifted. Businesses are clear. The economic evidence is clear. The geopolitical context — in which the UK finds itself increasingly aligned with European partners — is clear. What is missing is not information, but political courage.

If Labour is serious about growth, then it must be serious about removing the single largest structural barrier to that growth. That means making the case — openly, confidently, and without apology — for rejoining the customs union and the single market as a matter of economic necessity, not ideological preference.

Anything less risks turning a party of government into a manager of decline — administering the consequences of a failed project it lacks the will to confront.

The country has tested Brexit. It has not worked. The question is no longer whether that is true, but who is prepared to say so — and act on it.

Yours sincerely

Garry Procter

Disunited?

As a retired member of Unite. Now is not the time to cut funding. We have endured 14 years of Tory chaos and at last we have a Labour government. They have promised change, but first they must sort out the underfunding which the Tories have caused, and Trump’s mismanagement of the Worlds politics (he thinks he is God).

Give Kier Starmer time to do this.

Peter Cockings

*****

Should Andy Burnham have stood in Gorton? Of course not. Saying to the electors “You elected me as Mayor a couple of years ago. I’m off – and here’s a bill for £5 million for an election to choose my replacement” is just not acceptable, and Burnham would have been hit again and again with “£5 million” throughout the campaign.

Particularly since Caerphilly, “Only Labour can beat Reform” is nonsense; and it makes it all about Reform. You’re in Manchester, for goodness’ sake. Talk positively about what the Labour Mayor has done. You’ve got a Labour Government in power. Talk positively about what Labour has already done to pick up the bits after nine years of unbridled incompetence (with some corruption thrown in).

But above all can we stop acting as though unpopular candidates winning on split votes is something unavoidable. Adopt a democratic electoral system before it’s too late.

Neil Hickman 

*****

I believe Labour was set up to represent all the people. The class structure was established by the very rich to ensure their survival and it is Labour’s job to destroy it so that all the people can thrive.There is as much nasty division within the working class as everywhere else and that should go as well. Nor am I convinced by the term “ordinary people”, as I believe that we are blessed by a society rich with extraordinary people such as Keir Starmer’s Dad because ,as a tool maker it means he was an amazing, highly qualified, hands on engineer who is revered by people who know and sneered at by our enemies which just demonstrate how ignorant they are.

Thanks for all you do. 

Regards,

Bernard Naish

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