Sir, – I am perplexed by the positions being taken up on free movement in Britain and in the broader EU. Mrs May has enlightened us by explaining that "Brexit" means . . . well, "Brexit". She has said she wants access to (ie, remain in) the single market, but will not accept "free movement" as a price for access. Germany, France and other members of the EU have made it clear that "free movement" is a sine qua non for membership of , and access to, the single market.
Or have they? Any economist will explain why “free movement” means . . . well, “free movement”, and applies to all factors, goods, assets and services, while exclusions mean the absence of free movement.
This week’s EurActive Weekly, a respected online media source, informs us that Germany is considering protecting German firms from being taken over by purchasers from outside Germany. If true, this suggests that Germany demands free movement for labour, goods, services, but not for financial assets and investment in such assets.
Mrs May wants to enjoy free movement of all the above, except labour from EU states. Meanwhile France is concerned with controls on movement of intellectual property in matters cultural, while officially (but perhaps duplicitously) supporting free movement otherwise.
Further east, Austria and Hungary want all the above . . . but have problems with free movement of persons within the EU of Near East or Middle East origins.
Mrs May possibly can’t explain (or doesn’t want to explain) what Brexit is, or how you can have (or rationally should want to have) free movement and membership in a single market without free movement of labour. Her intellectual background is geography, not economics. However, it looks to me as if she is not alone in adopting an internally contradictory position. Granted what is inherent to “free movement”, it seems that many other EU member states do not subscribe fully to the doctrinal foundations of the single market, while demanding British acceptance of them. – Yours, etc,
MOORE McDOWELL,
Delgany
Co Wicklow.
Sir, – Further to Kathy Sheridan's "From Great Britain to Little England" (Opinion & Analysis, October 19th), I should be grateful for a clarification of the distinction between "Great Britain" so-called and "Little England" so-called. On the face of it the description of the English as "Little Englanders" seems little more than anti-English rhetoric.
The term “Little Englander” first emerged during the course of the Boer War. The English opposed the Boer War, rightly in my opinion.
In general, the British are imperialists, and indeed still retain the outward forms of imperialism in their CBEs, MBEs and OBEs.
All the Irish political parties are Irish nationalist parties, whether Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Labour or Sinn Féin. Independents too are Irish nationalists. What, then, is the objection to English nationalists?
The English as such are not inward looking. We also read Dante, Racine and Cervantes just as much as the British. Our greatest universities such as Oxford and Cambridge are English universities.
The people of Sunderland and the Forest of Dean voted to leave the undemocratic European Union. What on earth, if one believes in democracy, can be possibly objectionable about that? – Yours, etc,
GERALD MORGAN,
Dublin 2.