James Cartlidge MP adopts the language of Brexiters and UKIP

Dear Mr Cartlidge

Thank you very much for your recent briefing on the Brexit situation.  It is good to read a coherent summary of Tory views when so many of your colleagues are running around like headless chickens.

However, I must take issue with your paragraph beginning “In essence….”, where you seem to have swallowed UKIP hype and jargon ‘hook, line and sinker’.

Let’s take so-called “sovereignty” for fisheries as a starter: 

·         Fishing represents 0.05% of the economy

·         Tariff-free and easy exports for British fish and shellfish are more important to large parts of the British fisheries industry than the right to increased quotas.

·         Britain exports the majority of the fish that it catches and imports most of the fish that it eats. Many of the “fragile” UK coastal communities (including Suffolk’s) that are supposed to benefit from Brexit depend on harvesting shellfish, of which 90% is exported to the continent. We also sell the greatest part of our herring and mackerel to other EU countries.

Then there are your misconceptions and contradictions about migrant labour as a main course:

·         Current research suggests there was a small, negative impact on the wages of low-skilled workers, which was outweighed by other factors such as the impact of the financial crisis and rises in the minimum wage.

·         Migrants from the EU contribute £2,300 more to the exchequer each year in net terms than the average adult, the analysis for the government has found.  And, over their lifetimes, they pay in £78,000 more than they take out in public services and benefits - while the average UK citizen’s net lifetime contribution is zero.  Oxford Economics, which carried out the assessment, said this meant the value of EU citizens to the economy was the equivalent of slapping 5p on income tax rates.

For dessert you hope we will swallow your sweet words about the contribution of EU citizens to our health and care systems:

·         63,000 NHS staff in England are EU nationals - 5.6% of all staff

·         Across NHS trusts there is currently a shortage of more than 100,000 staff (representing 1 in 11 posts), severely affecting some key groups of essential staff, including nurses, many types of doctors, allied health professionals, and care staff. Vacancies in adult social care are rising, currently totally 110,000, with around 1 in 10 social worker and 1 in 11 care worker roles unfilled.

I know that you definitely belong to the “Caring Conservative Camp” but your party seems to have been taken over by people like Liam Fox whose use of the word “sovereignty” is highly selective. These people appear to hate much of what others love about this country: the NHS, our public broadcasters, our social safety net, the protection of the countryside, the notion that power resides in the people rather than in corporations and their shadowy lobbyists.

There are malefactors in our midst, who would rip down our most treasured institutions on behalf of sometimes dubious private companies, and transnational organisations (like Huawei, which is ultimately controlled by the Chinese Communist Party!), and frequently anonymous off-shore finance companies.

Is this what you mean by “sovereignty”?  Are we not being duped by the simplistic and populist slogan of “taking back control” disseminated by the likes of Farage.

Yours sincerely