Norway now

Along with Janet Burgess (Letters, Jan/ Feb), a great many of us believe it highly desirable that the UK should rejoin the European single market and customs union before too long; Great Britain (though not Northern Ireland) is currently the only territory in the whole of western and central Europe to be outside both.

The real irony is that longstanding proponents of leaving the European Union always advocated moving to a similar situation to Norway, outside the political institutions of the EU but retaining all the advantages of single market membership. Despite her initial “citizens of nowhere” rhetoric, Theresa May was, I believe, moving towards this position until she was stabbed in the back by Boris Johnson and others, leaving the road clear for what can only be described as a coup by an ideological cult, often motivated by a barely concealed xenophobia. Since then we have seen political minnows like Liz Truss hailing as great national triumphs trade deals that simply replicated what we had been enjoying for years anyway.

A future government, even a Conservative one, will probably find it economically necessary to move towards what has for years been described as the “Norway option.” Let us hope that the aforementioned ideological cult will not be allowed to stand in the way.

Alan Pavelin, Kent