Brexit has barely had a mention on the national election campaign trail - but it received plenty of attention in South Ribble, where
the Lancashire Post, Lancashire Lead, Blog Preston and the Local Democracy Reporting Service invited all five candidates standing for the constituency to a debate in which they fielded questions from voters.
Four of those on the ballot took part in the event. In order of appearance from left to right on the stage, they are:
KATHERINE FLETCHER - Conservative
PAUL FOSTER - Labour
ANDY HUNTER - Reform UK
ANGE TURNER - Liberal Democrats
The one other candidate for the South Ribble constituency, who was unable to attend, is:
STEPHANI MOK - Green Party
the Lancashire Post, Lancashire Lead, Blog Preston and the Local Democracy Reporting Service invited all five candidates standing for the constituency to a debate in which they fielded questions from voters.
Four of those on the ballot took part in the event. In order of appearance from left to right on the stage, they are:
KATHERINE FLETCHER - Conservative
PAUL FOSTER - Labour
ANDY HUNTER - Reform UK
ANGE TURNER - Liberal Democrats
The one other candidate for the South Ribble constituency, who was unable to attend, is:
STEPHANI MOK - Green Party
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NewsTranscript
00:00There's a question in the audience would like to know whether each of the parties
00:03will be trying to gain access to the single market.
00:06We certainly won't, that's for sure, and I think if I think if Labour decide that
00:13they want to re-engage with the people in Europe they're going to have a nasty
00:17little shock because Georgia and Italy and Marine France and the AFD in Germany
00:24are going in exactly the opposite direction that Sir Keir Starmer was
00:31hoping for. So it's going to be a pickle again but the problem is with the
00:36Conservative Party that they've just betrayed the country haven't they, they've
00:40absolutely betrayed the country. We voted and the civil service has betrayed the
00:45country. We voted to come out of Europe, us. So why on earth would we want to go
00:57back, we don't we don't believe. We're not planning on going back, I suspect Labour is going to want to tie
01:07the country more closely to Europe and are going to have the problems that I've just
01:12explained. I don't know what the Conservative position is now because
01:15they were in power when we came out of Europe and now what have we done? Nothing.
01:20Can I just ask you briefly, what is the reform vision for Brexit that looks
01:24different to the way it is now? Out of the single market, out of the customs union and the barriers that come with that?
01:31Well we can only do things if we get in power and we know that this election
01:36we're not going to get in power but we're going to be in people's faces for the
01:40next five years and maybe in five years time we'll be able to say that the
01:47trade opportunities that have been missed, the free ports that could have
01:52you know been managed quite readily have kicked off and there are some projects
01:57that are beyond party political time frames and we need a method as we did
02:04with the referendum to be able to get cross-party agreement on how things move
02:09forward in the future so that we don't stop and start and stop and start every
02:13time there's a change. Andy, thank you. And the Liberal Democrats made a virtue of
02:18their campaigning on Brexit in the past but slightly quieter this time round, is that fair?
02:22Yeah well I wouldn't say it's quieter, I mean it's not in our manifesto because there are
02:26critical issues in this country which are far more important at the moment as
02:30I said health care and the NHS and the cost of living crisis. However what I would
02:36say is that my opinion is that it's coincidental that since we left Europe
02:47our economy has faltered and has flatlined for the time that we've left
02:53Europe. I think it's absolutely clear to me if you are part of a trading group
02:58you're stronger than you would be if you're on your own and basically all the
03:04trade agreements that the government has negotiated has not come to a great
03:11deal. Our economy is suffering because our business people who buy goods and
03:17services export them out of the country and import them in are paying higher
03:23duties and it's making businesses actually go out of business. I am still a
03:31passionate European. I worked in Germany on a collaborative European project to
03:38build a jet to support the NATO alliance. We worked collaboratively and we ended
03:45up as a result of that having a more efficient more reliable protection and
03:52defence for our country and we did it because we did it together because no
03:55country can afford to build a product like that on its own. So I'm totally pro-European.
04:02I think if we join Europe again it will massively affect the output of our
04:08economy and we we've got a massive trading nation there of you know 500
04:14billion market trading nation to deal with and I think by leaving Brexit it's
04:19affected our economy. Paul, does the single market know what everything is based on, as James does I know?
04:27Absolutely not. So let's make it absolutely categorically clear. Single market and the customs union are not up for
04:35negotiation with the Labour Party Paul. They're not. We've made that categorically clear.
04:41What do you mean? Has he changed his mind from when he was pro-single market? Well we all have
04:46haven't we? We all have. The Brexit deal, Brexit's done. Brexit's done. It's caused huge amounts of
04:57damage to UK trade and what we have to do now is go and get the 2019 oven ready
05:04deal, Catherine, actually out of the oven and try and get it to work and work
05:09properly. We have to and that the first thing we need to do is improve our
05:14relationships with our European partners but no there's no renegotiation. The
05:20deal's done. We're out of Europe. What we need to do now is make the arrangements
05:24better to improve trade between the United Kingdom and Europe.
05:31Catherine, I think if the public gets your answer wrong then you'd be quite a new game access to the single market but can I ask you, are you proud of the way Brexit has been done?
05:39So I'll just pick up the very last of what Paul's just said actually. So we're not going back into Europe, we're not going to join the
05:46customs union, we're not going to join the single market, it's Labour's position, but we need to
05:49make the rules work better. So what that means ladies and gentlemen is that we
05:53will align and become rule takers to the European Union without having a seat
05:57around the table to actually influence any of those rules. Now I just want to
06:01correct a few, perhaps you know not as many people have got like a business and
06:09science background like I have. We have grown more than all of the rest of the
06:16European economy since 2010 in the UK. We are now the second in the world
06:22for greenfield foreign direct investment. We've just overtaken China, it's only the
06:27USA first. What does that mean? That means people coming from other countries to
06:31invest money to build factories etc, you know build new stuff that they want to
06:35do. We have, what we've chosen to do post Brexit is we have made deals with the
06:43parts of the world that are growing like Topsy. The European Union is a relatively
06:48stagnant market. Now they are my friends, like Angela I've also worked in Europe on
06:53collaborative projects and I certainly don't see Brexit as a rejection as part
06:57of my European identity at all. And I think we are demonstrating with things
07:02like the Orcas deal where you know we're bringing in Japan, America, Australia that
07:07there is a world and a future out there that can replicate those partnerships
07:11whilst keeping strong relationships with the Italians, the Germans etc on the
07:15Tempest and Typhoon in BAE. You know so I don't think we should get into a
07:22council of despair. I was the trade envoy selling the UK out in Mozambique in
07:27Africa because I used to work out there and I could speak a tiny bit of the local
07:30language. Be proud of Britain because they're bloody proud of us. They're
07:36desperate to do business with us. They're all growing when you look at the
07:39demographics of the African continent. Something silly like 60% of their
07:43population is under 30. These people are our friends, they're open to trading with
07:48us. We can maintain our friendly relationships with Europe and Sally for
07:52fountains the world. Yeah the Catherine quoted there the growth figures since
07:582010 and I urge you all to go and look at Sky psychologist Ed Conway. There's
08:06one commodity, one commodity that UK PLC trades that is distorted our GDP
08:14figures hugely and that's gold ladies and gentlemen. Gold. We trade gold in
08:20this country through the UK and that is hugely distorting our GDP figures. The
08:26reason I know that businesses in South Ribble are hugely struggling with the
08:32current Brexit deal is because they've told us and there's a numerous UK SMEs
08:38Paul who can no longer trade or afford to trade with Europe because the terms
08:43of the deal have been agreed by Mr. Johnson. Point made. Andy you wanted to clarify one particular thing.
08:49Gordon Brown's soul doesn't work at all. We came out of Europe and there's thousands and thousands and thousands of EU regulations still hamstringing British business. Why?
09:05And you talked about the relationship with the European countries. We've got a
09:10Commonwealth. That's the growing parts of the world. Europe is bombing. The
09:15Germany economy is bombing. The French economy is bombing. Why do we want to be
09:20in a bombing market? Why do we not want to get out there and trade with the
09:24parts of the world that you just said are growing like Topsy. That's what we want to be doing. We're not going to be sitting around on our backsides trading with
09:33Macron or whoever follows him. We'd like some of the regulations kicked out. Gold. It's a bit of a sensitive issue I guess.