Brexit plan provides welcome optimism

“IT is my job to be frank and honest”. Well said, Keir! It’s great to come across a political speech packed full of unequivocal commitments. In Keir Starmer’s five-point plan to create a better Brexit we are provided with a welcome dose of clarity and optimism.

Finally we have from the Labour Party a recognition of the Brexit referendum message. People voted for change. “The hope that underpinned that vote was the desire for a better, fairer, more equitable future for our country”. I couldn’t agree more.

And to achieve this? Quick fix or considered, patriotic reform? Starmer starts with a clear commitment ... “We will not return to freedom of movement to create short-term fixes.”

Then he adds just a little bit of pleasing patriotic rhetoric ... “Instead, we will invest in our people and our places and deliver on the promise our country has.

If we are to restore faith in politics as a force for good, we must now get on with delivering on that promise”.

Not a hint of criticism of the Brexit campaigners and the way they are said to have bemused the electorate with a mixture of half truths, populist fearmongering and xenophobia. Just respect and acceptance of the essential good faith on both sides of a hard-fought democratic debate. Such commendable good sense!

There is, without doubt, a lot for an incoming Labour administration to put right, but in a few areas you have to wonder if the issues are a bit exaggerated.

Consider, for example, the post-Brexit record of our North East region with respect to inward investment. It has been described as “remarkable”.

In the past couple of weeks alone I have been struck by headline after headline highlighting businesses achieving great things.

The message couldn’t be clearer – we are doing better than anywhere else in the UK outside London. Something doesn’t add up. According to economists that’s not supposed to be happening.

Finally, for those die-hard correspondents who continue to insist that Brexit has no positive side, how about this counter example? For me all forms of discrimination are wrong-headed.

And the EU policy of discrimination on the grounds of nationality is, in my opinion, no exception.

As members of the group we were constrained to treat differently would-be immigrants from, say, Lithuania and Nigeria looking for a better life in the UK.

The former could benefit from freedom of movement, the latter could not. That horrible relic of an idea from a bygone colonial age has now gone, thank goodness!

Getting rid of the ethical minefield inexorably linked to the policy has at a stroke done more to enhance the concept of global Britain than any amount of bland rhetoric ever could. JOHN HODGKINS,

Seaton Sluice