France is still an ally as we are all part of NATO

D.A. Cookson (Letters 8/12/21) asserts that France is no longer our ally. This is incorrect since France remains an ally within NATO, and the armed forces of both continue to cooperate well.

Indeed, the Lancaster House Treaties of 2010 between the United Kingdom and France for defence and security cooperation continue to be honoured.

What it would be true to say is that neither France nor any of the other countries of the EU are our partners, either economically or culturally. In voting for Brexit we chose to reject such partnership. Our Tory Government insisting on leaving most of the EU institutions further exacerbated this. The countries of the EU did not ask us to leave and indeed made it clear that on deciding leave we were welcome to remain within both the Customs Union and the Single Market. They even offered to give us as much time as we required to transition to any new arrangements.

The confusion and haste with which we left the EU was entirely a matter of our Government’s choosing.

With regard to asylum seekers, our Government has cut off most of the legitimate ways of applying. As a result, according to UNHCR, in the year ending June 2021, France received 87,180 asylum applicants while the UK received 37,235. France has roughly the same population as the UK but accepts twice as many asylum applicants.

Bearing in mind our reluctance to accept our fair share of asylum applicants, fishing wars, the perceived betrayals on the AUKUS deal and endless quarrelling about the Northern Ireland protocol, it is hardly surprising that the French (and their EU partners) are showing little enthusiasm for cooperating with us.

John Catt, a member of the Leicestershire European Movement - www.emleics.co.uk