Truth will out...

When Jacob Rees-Mogg, the satirically titled minister for Brexit opportunities, accidentally told the truth and abandoned EU food border checks because they were an ‘act of self harm’ he conveniently forgot to include the £24m bespoke Portsmouth Mile End Road border post white elephant. He also had the nerve to claim it would ‘save’ us Britons £1bn, when if it wasn’t for Brexit, we wouldn’t have had to spend it in the first place as members of the world’s largest single market.

But the Brexit disaster hasn’t just added to food costs. British farmers have been abandoned, sold down the river ending up facing onerous costly checks and paperwork when they ship their goods across the Channel.

Or perhaps we could share the concerns of the British Veterinary Association which has warned that not checking food imports leaves Britain exposed to ‘catastrophic’ animal diseases which were monitored by EU highly responsive monitoring systems.

The plain fact is Rees-Mogg’s admission exposes the lie that border checks were a genuine benefit and a price worth paying for leaving the EU. Britain would at last be free to set its own food standards.

But now comes the admission that putting up barriers just makes food more expensive for consumers, risks bankrupting our farmers, and leaves hundreds of millions of pounds wasted on unused border control infrastructure.

R Thomson

If it wasn’t for Brexit, we wouldn’t have had to spend it as members of the world’s largest single market R THOMSON

Gosport