A CALL for the UK to rejoin the EU was made by local MP Rachel Gilmour after a Parliamentary debate on a rejected amendment to the King’s Speech.

Mrs Gilmour said a customs union with the EU would be the first step in ‘cutting red tape, boosting business, and turbocharging the economy’.

She said: “Farmers and rural businesses in Devon and Somerset have spent years dealing with red tape and lost access to European trading markets.”

Mrs Gilmour believed the Liberal Democrat amendment would have been the first step on the road to a better working relationship with Europe to help tackle the cost of living and, in the long-term, back toward EU membership.