I BELIEVE a complete withdrawal from Europe is too drastic a measure.


The Brexit white paper, for example, outlining the Government’s plans on how the UK will leave the EU is inadequate and badly thought out as it leaves Britain isolated with no institutional or political presence in Europe unlike, for example, the model adopted by Switzerland.


Under the Government’s proposals Britain’s international legal personality would undergo a profound change and Britain would be reduced to being  a completely foreign power without any European dimension in our dealings with Europe and the rest of the world and would presumably have to operate under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.


The white paper says that Britain could “take in elements’’ of the single market in certain areas, in other words make bespoke deals. 


But this is what Switzerland does now with more than 160 bi-lateral agreements.

The principal difference is that Switzerland is a member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) which is a “looser’’ organisation than the EU, and which comprises of other non EU countries, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.


Unlike these countries Switzerland is not a member of the European Economic Area (EEA) and therefore is completely outside EU control but it retains an institutional footing in Europe through EFTA and consequently can still exert some influence in Europe.


David Lockwood, 
St Helens