IT was good to read Mr Mudge of UKIP acknowledging in his letter of August 12 that the single market in the European Union has multiplied trade in both directions.
Competitive firms in the UK export more to the rest of Europe. Competitive firms there export more here, bringing down the price and improving quality of the goods in our shops.
The single market, which Margaret Thatcher did so much to inspire, has given us not only much more freedom to trade with each other but the freedom to invest, move and take jobs in other EU countries, to buy property and set up in business there. Euro membership is already driving a further growth of trade for those inside.
The question UKIP must answer if it wants to be taken seriously as an aspirant for Government is what it would do for these freedoms if in power?
We know it wants to leave the EU (presumably under the new article in the EU constitution which for the first time provides for this) but what next?
Would it happily accept new tariff and other barriers to trade and free movement in Europe? Or would it try to negotiate a status similar to non-member Norway in the European Economic Area?
Norway gets free trade in manufactures and is outside the common fisheries and agriculture policies but it pays a high price. It has to apply all EU regulations without any say in them. This would be a huge loss of sovereignty for Britain, which is today a key player, more often than not in the majority, in all Brussels decisions.
Or would UKIP opt out of Europe and try to join the North America Free Trade Area? That has none of the social legislation in the EU but it does give much power to corporations.
Would UKIP stay in the World Trade Organisation, whose rulings can be more unaccountable than the EU? EU muscle has so far protected the UK from US pressure in the WTO ? for example to import unlabelled GM foods and crops.
What, in short, does UKIP propose in our real interdependent world? If they cannot or will not answer, they will remain a protest party of (in their own words) ?wreckers?.
Chris Layton
Copperfields
Horrabridge