BIG PICTURE
FOUR years 6 months since the referendum and the British government has finally agreed its trade deal with the EU.
How many readers understand what that deal means for their lives and this country?
It has certainly never been the subject of national debate or consensus.
Government and much of the media have been reluctant to explain even the most basic of consequences, preferring to talk vaguely about sovereignty and control.
The fact is that much of what we relied on to keep our country running smoothly is now to be thrown up in the air and life is about to get a lot harder.
Import/export businesses, hauliers, food retailers, farmers, the chemical industry, manufacturers, scientists, the ports, even the fishing industry have been crying out for more time, closer links, less bureaucracy, faster systems but to no avail.
We now add to our Covid-ravaged economy, the cutting of our supply chains, friction at the borders, a mountain of red tape, jeopardizing our security and datasharing relationships, a loss of competitiveness, visas, burdensome travel arrangements and a border within our own territory which is not remotely ready to operate.
In their bid for ‘sovereignty’, our government has isolated us in a less secure world of red tape, queues and expense.
The ease of the life we took for granted before has gone.
The government has celebrated removing Freedom of Movement rights as part of their Immigration Act.
But that means that we have lost our citizenship rights on our own continent.
We are second-class citizens when compared with our European counterparts.
Will our employment and equality rights be protected?
Will our environmental and welfare standards be safeguarded?
By leaving the EU, we have stripped ourselves of a layer of democratic protection and now we are only as safe as any domestic government wants us to be.
Even before we have experienced life on our own, Brexit has cost us almost as much as our entire 47-year membership of the EU.
And so much more besides.
David Philpott
Chair of the European Movement Macclesfield and East Cheshire
MORE HARM THAN GOOD
THE establishment of a Tier 4 area is highly likely to do more damage than good.
Once again it is minimal in approach, trying to appease rather than having the courage to make very firm and difficult decisions.
As ever it is bolting the stable door after the horse has long since galloped away.
The Prime Minister cannot court political popularity at the expense of half measures that will cost people their lives.
Because the Government refused to have the courage to maintain the lock down over Xmas, we experienced the superspreading event of many thousands of people gathering unsafely on station platforms all over London and then cramming unwisely onto crowded and therefore unsafe environments to travel to all points all over the country to escape the telegraphed potential of an increased stringent Xmas restrictions.
This was all too predictable.
But, of course, the Prime Minister will take no responsibility for what happened because he expected people to ‘act sensibly and do the right thing for themselves and their families’. They are like ants who will be carrying the mutated virus back to the nest.
These travellers, and others like them, in the next few days, regardless of the Government’s half-hearted caution, will take with them a virus that is, at the moment of writing, 70 per cent more transmissible and we have yet to find out in the next few days whether it is more virulent!
By shutting down much of the South in Tier 4 you will have effectively made the rest of the country more vulnerable, in as much as Tiers 2 and 3 will be relatively less well defended and alert to the arrival of the new strain, which will spread exponentially.
At which point when it is too late, you will no doubt tell us that everywhere else has to be in Tier 4 as you react retroactively to another crisis point.
Now even with vaccines on the way, the virus is outrunning the inadequacies of government and has demonstrated all too clearly that it should have priority.
Frank Vigon via email
NEW YEAR OFFERS HOPE
AS we reflect on 2020, we’ll all be glad to see the back of a year dominated by Covid restrictions, masks and being unable to shake hands, sit next to each other, or simply hug those we love.
Everyday lives have seemed conjoined with wider political policy, from daily national briefings, furloughs and restrictions alongside home schooling, getting children back to school, how and where we work, what we buy and who we may see.
For many, 2020 has meant grief, loss and segregation, shielding from a deadly virus with all the impacts of loneliness and isolation.
Those in the health, care and public services have been working continuously with the inevitable ‘battle fatigue’ this causes.
But even as infection rates rise again and new restrictions take effect, it’s important to remember that 2020 has taught us valuable lessons that will serve us well.
Across Cheshire East, amazing volunteers have mobilised to support the vulnerable, alongside our health, care and public sector workers, in ways that are both extraordinary, wonderful and humbling.
We’ve all had to adapt; working from home and communicating via the internet.
Throughout the pandemic, Cheshire
East Council has been required to send monthly financial data on the ‘costs of Covid’, to inform the
Government’s response, (including £4m on Christmas Eve for council tax support grants).
To date, the Government has invested nearly £200m in Cheshire East to meet the demands of the Covid crisis, supporting businesses, social care, care homes, infection control and other essentials. However, the measure of recovery in a post-Covid world must be how quickly we can return to economic and social ‘normality’.
2021 offers hope, as the Pfizer vaccine is being distributed to priority groups, and the Oxford Vaccination Data has been submitted for licensing approval.
But we must be patient - the roll-out will take time, with the most vulnerable being treated first.
Recovery from this pandemic may take years, but vaccination means that in 2021, we will at least be able to make a safe start.
I wish you all a safe, happy and healthy New Year.
Councillor Janet Clowes,
Conservative group leader, Cheshire East
THIS month, Cheshire East Council finally debated and voted on ‘20’s Plenty’ - a 20mph default speed limit for residential areas, improving road safety and reducing pollution.
Unfortunately, the council stopped well short of this, agreeing only to the ‘principle’ of 20mph zones ‘where appropriate’.
The original proposal, put forward by the council’s walking and cycling champion, Independent councillor Suzie AkersSmith, was watered down and kicked into the long grass by amendments put forward by Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.
At the same time, the council is bragging about ‘progress’ with the so-called Poynton Relief Road.
Traffic planners have known for nearly a century that bypass roads do nothing to relieve traffic; rather, they encourage extra car journeys and cause increased congestion where they disgorge back onto the original route.
In this case, swathes of green belt land in Poynton and Adlington are being destroyed for the sake of a new road that will result in even more traffic clogging up Macclesfield’s busy streets and, by providing an extra route to the airport, will encourage even more air travel.
Has Cheshire East Council not heard of climate change? We need to be drastically reducing road and air-traffic, not increasing it.
What nonsense to claim that a new road can provide ‘economic and social regeneration’!
Any jobs created at the airport will be at the expense of existing jobs in places like Macclesfield, as businesses move there to take advantage of taxbreaks and lighter planning regulations.
Existing employees will be forced to commute to the airport if they want to keep their jobs - by car, of course, as there’s no public transport to get there.
A year and a half after the Labour-led coalition took control in Cheshire East, it seems they are just as obsessed with cars as their Conservative predecessors.