Entrepreneurs urge MPS to vote to keep UK in the EEA
THERESA MAY has been urged to support a vote to keep membership of the European Economic Area (EEA) as an option in the Brexit negotiations by some of Britain’s leading entrepreneurs.
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, the 16 businesspeople say they have “lost faith in the negotiation of a successful Brexit” and are unable to grow their businesses because of uncertainty over Britain’s relationship with the EU
They urge MPS from all parties to vote for an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill, which would keep open the option of accessing the single market. They say “the EEA combined with a customs union is the most viable model on offer to guarantee UK access to the single market”.
SIR – We are UK entrepreneurs and patriotic citizens. We have built and run businesses here that have created tens of thousands of jobs and we have found the United Kingdom a brilliant place to do business.
While leaving the EU will hamper the UK’S ability to create growth and jobs, we accept that 52 per cent of country voted to leave. But as business owners we have lost faith in the negotiation of a successful Brexit.
The lack of transparency and consistency from both main political parties over the desired end state from the negotiations is hampering our ability to plan our businesses. For the sake of the economy and the long-term interests of the country, we ask all politicians to unite to avoid a hard Brexit, the most damaging, but now the most likely, outcome.
We therefore call on MPS to put country ahead of party politics when they vote on the Lords amendments to the EU Withdrawal Bill, and to keep the option of accessing the single market through continued membership of the EEA.
The EEA is not a perfect solution. We hope an even better alternative can be found. But given where we are in the negotiations, the EEA combined with a customs union is the most viable model on offer to guarantee UK access to the single market and avoid a damaging hard Brexit. To rule it out at this stage would be irresponsible, and is why we ask MPS to pass the “Meaningful Vote” amendment, so that proper parliamentary scrutiny takes place on the “deal”.
The referendum in 2016 was about leaving the EU. It was not about leaving the single market, nor the customs union. They are three separate entities requiring three separate decisions, and the country only voted on one.
So we urge MPS to vote for jobs first in Brexit negotiations and resist attempts to remove the EEA from the EU Withdrawal Bill on Tuesday.
James Averdieck
Founder, Gu Alex Chesterman Founder, Zoopla James Daunt Founder, Daunt Books Richard Hilton Founder, Gym Box Martha Lane Fox Founder, Lastminute.com Richard Reed Founder, Innocent Drinks Peter Williams
Founder, Jack Wills and nine others; see telegraph.co.uk
SIR – When my friends and I voted to leave the EU, we did so to leave the single market and the customs union, and to control our own borders, thus giving us our sovereignty back. We didn’t expect it would give us a financial penalty, but we were prepared for that eventuality.
This Government does not understand its electorate’s feelings. If this outcome is not realised, I will go against my beliefs and vote Labour in the next election, and suffer a financial hit, to ensure these political elite Tory traitors never get into power again.
John Richards
Rugby, Warwickshire
SIR – A year on from a disastrous election campaign, with a Prime Minister deemed to be weak leading a Government that for eight years has had to take the most unpopular economic decisions since the war, you report that the governing party has an unprecedented seven-point lead over the main opposition.
The British public understand that only the Conservatives can deliver Brexit. Any Tory MP contemplating voting to uphold the various Lords amendments designed to overturn the referendum result should reflect long and hard on this simple truth.
Philip Duly
Haslemere, Surrey
SIR – We are being bullied by a German chancellor whom we are not standing up to. The Halifax figure, our arch appeaser, is Philip Hammond and the Chamberlain (Theresa May) is preparing to wave a bit of paper (“Agreement in our time”).
Meanwhile the population is under no illusions about the dire outcome threatened, and one parliamentarian, deeply distrusted by his colleagues, is waiting for the call which, and this is where the history books cease to be helpful, may never come.
Alan Duncalf
Bampton, Devon
SIR – Mrs May’s lack of leadership means that we are about to be utterly humiliated, just like the Greeks. What a disgrace that we can’t find the bottle when we need it.
Can’t Boris Johnson do something?
JD Mortimer Great Harwood, Lancashire
sir – Is it not time Theresa May admitted that she hasn’t, and never has had, any intention of leaving the EU, as all her actions to date indicate?
SIR – Last night I had a terrible dream. Mrs May had agreed with her EU partners on our joining the euro.
Roger Pinner
Eltisley, Cambridgeshire Valda Mossman
Penzance, Cornwall