MANY OF us would have seen and ignored the TV advert about moving forward after Brexit.

Aside from the forgettable slogans, it came as a bit of a surprise to me as we have already left the European Union.

After nearly five years since the referendum and after years of prevarication and extensions, under three Conservative prime ministers, you would expect some clarity.

Yet we still have no idea what our relationship if any will be with the Europeans.

As we get squeezed between the Americans and Chinese in their trade wars and geopolitical confrontations, we need to be clear where we stand with our nearest and largest trading partners in Europe.

The first priority of any government must be to look after our national interests.

We also have to be aware of our values because they define what we are.

The primary requirement is the need to defend our economic interests.

In particular our productive industries and farming.

Letting American chlorinated chicken and cheaper low standard foodstuffs does our farmers no favours.

As consumers it does us even less.

Engineering, IT, pharma and other high skilled jobs to take us forward in the 21st century are important but we need to guard against unfair overseas competition and a blatant disregard for property rights.

A second requirement is to ensure an immigration system that provides the workforce that our society requires, yet at the same time does not destroy opportunity for our own population.

We will still need people to work in the NHS and social care. Yet we fail to grow enough capacity from my own population.

We just do not train enough doctors and nurses, becoming reliant on large overseas contingents to make up the numbers.

If we are to move forward, we need priorities for the future not the past.

We need to invest in lifelong education so that people can retrain and take on different jobs.

The economy must be greener and much more sustainable.

It is too easy to do the same old same yet again.

It is too easy to announce packages with great fanfare only to find that the money is regurgitations of previous promises many of them not fulfilled.

Luigi Gregori

Andover