Conduct the Brexit talks in a more mature fashion

PREDICTABLY, Remain voters have taken great delight in reports that the Brexit talks started off with European Union negotiators treating our representatives as if they were naughty schoolchildren called to the headmaster’s study.

However, nobody said Brexit was going to be an easy process. How could it be when Britain stands alone against 27 other member states whose strings are being pulled by Germany and France?

The sooner the European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel

Barnier and his colleagues accept that we are quitting their institution, the better it will be for them and us. We need to make it clear to the Eurocrats that unless they adopt a more grown-up attitude in these negotiations, we will simply walk away.

THAT the Chancellor Philip Hammond has distanced himself from Theresa May’s hard Brexit stance highlights the fear politicians have of an economic meltdown if we do not secure a deal.

Now that we are in this mess, we must secure an amicable agreement with the EU. I support Hammond’s attempt to soften the blow by saying the Government “does not wish to shut down” immigration.

It is imperative that we are able to get a free trade agreement but this will not be achieved with fighting talk and unrealistic demands. One can only hope our Brexit negotiators will soon learn that a more diplomatic approach will be better received by our EU counterparts.

WE SHOULD prepare ourselves for a hard Brexit. The opening gambit from the EU is to demand tens of billions of pounds from the UK as a pre-condition for carrying out trade negotiations whose outcome is uncertain. What are we paying for? This tactic has a name: extortion. Britain’s negotiators would be much better off spending their time making deals with countries who want nostrings arrangements than talking to an organisation whose primary objective seems to be to punish us financially for as long as possible.

If we give in to paying such an amount, there will be no end to the demands from the EU.

SIMON English describes Brexiteers in his article as “the (nutty) Right” [ June 20], yet 40 per cent of Londoners voted Leave and some would have been Left-wing voters.

Why does English think it is “nutty” to want to get back control of one’s country, be able to engage to an even greater degree on trade with the rest of the world and help the underdeveloped world by potentially removing tariffs on their produce into the UK?