MP responds to Foreign Policy Magazine article on 'Brexit Britain'

War correspondent Liz Cookman wrote an article on February 1 for the Foreign Policy Magazine in which she described the market town of Penrith as an example of Brexit-related decline.

On a visit to the town, the war correspondent, who has spent much time over the past year based in Ukraine, visited the town and was greeted by a scene which she described as struggling shops, closed down bars and empty shelves in the supermarket.

"Working in war-torn Ukraine," she wrote, "is easier and more comfortable (missiles aside) than trying to do the same in peace-shattered Penrith."

Ms Cookman points to huge labour shortages in the hospitality sector, soaring energy costs, the use of foodbanks, and the many strikes currently affecting public services.

“A man in overalls whitewashes the front window of yet another shop closing on the city’s main street," she wrote.

“Families stockpile blankets to ward off the cold as they sit shivering in their homes with no heating while lines of people who cannot afford to feed their children form at the local food bank. Bars shut their doors early, and some days, they don’t even open at all.

“I’m not in Ukraine, where I’ve spent the last year reporting on the devastation caused by Russia’s war. This is life in broken Britain, a quagmire of misery and problems, where even February’s weather is predicted to be colder and glummer than usual.

“Brexiteers promised the country would 'take back control.' Instead, it is on course to be the world’s worst-performing big economy this year, according to the International Monetary Fund.”

'Brexit naysayers manage to find the cloud in every silver lining'

But a local Conservative MP - who is set to stand in the new constituency of Penrith and Solway at the next general election - has hit back at the people he calls ‘remoaners’, saying that the government has ‘extracted ourselves from the ailing Europe Union.’

Reacting to the piece, Mark Jenkinson MP said: “I was elected on a manifesto to get Brexit done. This Government has delivered on that pledge on the back of the biggest democratic mandate in British history.

Mark Jenkinson MP

“We have extricated ourselves from the ailing European Union, yet there are some patients who do not want to get better – who want to prolong their illness and return to their sick beds.

“Outside of the EU, the UK has more control over a number of areas including our borders, laws and money, forming new trade deals and embracing new opportunities.

“It believe it was H L Mencken who said: ‘A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin’. This sums up the negativity of these Brexit naysayers who manage to find the cloud in every silver lining.

“These Remoaners are continually peddling the patronising nonsense that those who voted to leave the EU are ‘thickos’ or ‘bigots’.

“These doomsters blame Brexit for everything from food banks to empty shelves in supermarkets.

“Make no mistake: they want Britain to fail so they can crow ‘I told you so’, and because they are never happier than when they are talking the UK down. It is people like this which damage the country, not Brexit.”