Too soon to tell if Leave was best option

TO answer your recent question (posed in the letters section ), no, the antics of the EU over Covid vaccines have not altered my view that, overall, leaving has probably not been in this country’s best interests.

There is no doubt that the EU messed up on vaccines and then tried to cover their embarrassment and incompetence by making silly threats. Ursula von de Leyen was roundly and rightly criticised by both politicians and the media in the EU. The threats have now been withdrawn, but the EU has done itself no favours. The UK did much better – credit where credit is due.

Indeed, the vaccine programme is arguably the one success story from the otherwise poorly-managed pandemic.

If Covid has done one thing for the Johnson administration, it has diverted attention away from Brexit bad news stories. These include:

a) UK businesses who export to the EU setting up warehousing and other operations in EU countries to avoid import tax, with the consequent loss of UK jobs and tax revenue;

b) EU-based retailers deciding that they can no longer afford to export to the UK;

c) Bureaucratic form-filling and other processes causing delay for exporters and hauliers;

d) Seafood exports rotting due to delays.

These are retrograde steps and far from the seamless trade promised by Boris Johnson. Were it not for the exceptional circumstances of Covid, I suspect that the decision to leave the EU would not be looking as attractive right now.

Yes, the Government has done well on the vaccines issue and certainly better than the EU. But two swallows do not make a summer.

I would argue that, after only one month, it is much too soon to conclude, on the basis of a single issue, that the decision to leave the EU is somehow vindicated. Only time will tell if that is truly so.

P J Knowles Taunton, Somerset