Key lesson from Mongolia on UK trade tariffs with the E.U.

Mongolia, however, receives preferential tariffs of zero per cent on most exports to the E.U., including natural honey. But only as a member of the E.U. can the UK avoid these tariffs.

I realized (yet again) what a disaster leaving the E.U. will be. The tariffs we will have to pay must adversely affect our competitiveness. Some UK export-dependent businesses will move their production units to the E.U., creating unemployment here. E.U. businesses, given the great advantage of zero per cent tariffs, will easily replace some of the remaining UK-based production and services.

What about trade agreements around the world? Two quotes from the workshop: “The E.U. is here to help Mongolia” and “The E.U. wants to increase Mongolian exports to the E.U..” (The preferential tariff rate of zero per cent supports these statements).

Why should Mongolia sign trade agreements with the UK, when it has this level of support from the E.U.? The E.U., from what I have seen, has a presence and impact in Mongolia which dwarfs any UK involvement. The only Brits I have met here work for the E.U.

I fail to understand how the Brexit supporters have managed to avoid being called to account on these issues. What will become of the UK? A low business-tax economy, popular with hedge fund managers?I don’t see Scotland being pleased if Boris, Jacob and Nigel lead us into the new world.

Barry K Wilson, Paisley

TO maintain a centre of calm and stability amid the chaos created by Boris Johnson’s no-deal Brexit on October 31, Jean-Claude Juncker may, according to reports, stay on as president of the European Commission until next June. In contrast to Britain, Europe has wide-ranging plans to cope with the fall-out overseen by the über-intelligent German bureaucrat Martin Selmayr, Juncker’s right-hand man and the most senior EU civil servant.

Selmayr’s “no-deal” planning is designed to “protect the vital interests of the EU” so that collateral damage to the UK is inevitable, especially to our jobs, economy, services, air travel and food products, with long border queues. I suspect Boris Johnson will be over, cap in hand, by November, but the withdrawal treaty terms will remain. He clearly thinks he can force Selmayr to change his mind but that really would be a neat trick.

Rev Dr John Cameron, St Andrews

THE Scottish Government’s game-changing initiative to tackle child poverty has been warmly backed by the Child Poverty Action Group, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Poverty Alliance, and Citizens Advice Scotland, yet the Labour Party sourly criticises it for “not going far enough”.

This is the same Labour Party which for decades presided over high levels of poverty, with Glasgow alone infamous for having the worst slums in Europe, where children suffered chronic health problems due to living in houses riddled with damp and condensation, many with no baths or inside toilets, in constituencies where far too often Labour MPs and councillors wore invisibility cloaks and only revealed themselves to their constituents when they wanted their vote.

This is the same Labour Party which impotently wrung its hands while Margaret Thatcher imposed her poll tax on Scotland and decimated Scotland’s industries. This is the same Labour Party which stood shoulder to shoulder with the Tories at the last independence referendum, and which will almost certainly stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them at the next.

And it is because of the laziness and arrogance of this self-same Labour Party which for years took Scottish votes for granted that disillusioned voters in its heartlands deserted it in disgust, with Labour’s latest humiliation coming last month at the EU elections, when its vote collapsed and it trailed into fifth place in Scotland with less than 10 per cent of the vote.

The Labour Party is in no position to lecture anyone about “not going far enough”; it did not go nearly far enough when it had the trust of Scotland’s voters, which is why droves of them will never vote Labour again.

Ruth Marr, Stirling

SPEAKING at the G20 meeting, Vladimir Putin claims the liberal dream across the globe has gone and been replaced by ‘’nationalism and populism.’’ He may well be correct.

Having witnessed this phenomenon at first hand in Scotland over the past couple of decades I can say that nationalism is a most unpleasant creed and has brought to my own country an overpowering sense of ‘’me-first,’’ flag-waving, and a lack of toleration for other views, which at times borders on hatred.

It is an appeal to the most base, tribal instincts in human beings and should be consigned to the dustbin of history to join those other outdated and unpleasant ‘’isms’’ - communism and fascism.

Alexander McKay. Edinburgh

IN Scotland we have a raft of crises to deal with, in particular the attainment gap in schools, plus a general decline in school standards; health service waiting-times and the unavailability of certain treatments because of staff shortages; child poverty; successive and expensive IT project failures; and a declining tax take, which means less revenue to deal with these problems.

So how does the SNP Scottish government prioritise its efforts? It shelves its projected education bill and concentrates on pushing through measures to promote another referendum and ‘citizens’ assemblies’ whose purpose is to promote separatism.

This one-track government prefers fiddling with its constitutional obsession while Scotland burns.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh

IF you are fed up with Tories talking, you need not switch them on. I was about four when my parents explained that Labour wanted to help poor people and Tories wanted to help rich people. My mind was made up. Now I am 90 and can claim that I have never knowingly listened to any Tory saying anything.

Moyna Gardner, Glasgow