THE Rees Cafe was packed with people when local MP Rachel Maclean held a Macmillan Coffee Morning earlier today, Friday, October 5.
With the nation deep in the throes of Brexit she said it was important to remember the impact cancer has on people’s live and raise money to combat it.
“Granted we’re doing this a week later than the official date but it’s a question of doing a coffee morning for Macmillan Cancer Support or not doing one at all,” she said.
“Cancer has touched everyone’s lives in some formand what we are trying to do is raise some money to support the great work of Macmillan.”
One local resident, Teresa Twilton from Abbeydale said: “No matter what your politics I have never seen an MP work as hard as Rachel Maclean for the people of Redditch.
“That’s why I am here supporting her coffee morning.”
Returning to the issue of Brexit, the MP said it was in everyone’s interest that Britain leaves the EU with a deal.
“A lot of what we have heard from Europe has been for their own national audience,” she said.
“What we need now is for them all to sit down and discuss this issue in a sensible and pragmatic way because a deal is in the best interests of us all.”
And she dismissed claims that the fate of Northern Ireland is ‘collateral damage’ in the drive for England to exit the EU.
“The deal put forward by the Prime Minister fully respects the Good Friday Agreement,” she said.
“We are a Unionist government and we want something that will work for the whole of the UK.”
The PM’s proposals are understood to involve EU regulations being maintained in Northern Ireland, previously a red line for the Democratic Unionist Party, until 2025 when it is hoped both Belfast and Dublin would work on a way forward between them.
However there are fears that post 2025 any structure that could possibly mean ‘border’ between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland could signal a return to The Troubles.
