Europe: Better markets elsewhere

We will confidently carry on trading with the world in future.

We need complete freedom to do so.

The success of that trading should only rely on us and our self-confidence as a country. No other nation should have a say.

I read with interest Mr Wilkinson’s letter (Northumberland Gazette, March 17), in which he says our contribution to EU funds, “buys us access to the most important market in the world”.

Really? So much for the tariff-free Common Market.

Whether it is £350million or £136million a week we give the EU, it certainly adds up to a canny trading tax.

Some say the EU is “the most important market in the world”.

Any salesperson will tell you the most interesting and lucrative markets are expanding markets, or ones with potential to grow. The EU market today is stagnant and going backwards.

Trading with the rest of the world?

Like Anne Wrangham (Northumberland Gazette, March 17), I too have reflected that we were made to turn away from trading independently with our Commonwealth family 40-odd years ago, a condition of joining the Common Market.

New Zealand and Australian lamb was a mainstay after the war, (also an important ingredient in Rennison’s pies).

If we resume trading independently with the Commonwealth, and restore our special relationship (it never really went away), we speak the same language, don’t we?

The Commonwealth has twice as many countries in it than the EU.

This country has always welcomed refugees and economic migrants, but I think it’s fair to say we have never in the history of this country received so many in such a short period of time.

This is directly attributable to EU rules. Most would agree we’re snowed under.

An example of who holds the power is in Cameron’s question to Brussels, “can we stop sending child allowance abroad for children who have never lived in this country?”

The answer from Brussels: “Not without our permission you can’t, and we might not give it.”

There are many more facts to consider in this referendum, that’s true.

But no joking, all in all, I’m an ‘outy’.

That’s a fact.

Derek Jamieson,

Florens,

Swarland