We've pressed the reset button. Now let's reboot Britain

Speaking of last week’s much-publicised Brexit “reset”, Sir Keir Starmer proclaimed: “It gives us unprecedented access to the European Union market.” Sorry, prime minister, but, with the utmost possible respect, I have to say that it doesn’t.

- William Keegan

We enjoyed unprecedented access to the EU market when we joined what was then the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973. And we had even more unprecedented access when we signed up with others to the European single market in 1986. Our membership, indeed cham-

pioning, of the single market, negotiated on behalf of Mrs Thatcher, by my old friend the late Lord Cockfield, was regarded by Ken Clarke as Mrs Thatcher's greatest achievement.

Ken didn’t say this, but I shall: it gave British industry a trad-ing opportunity to counterbalance some of the damage wreaked by Thatcher's adoption of monetarism and its excessively deflationary policies in the early 1980s.

However, this did not stop soi-disant Thatcherites from turning to the Brexit which involved abandoning our precious membership of the single market. Before the