Lords’ Brexit demands risk strengthening the EU’s negotiating hand

SIR – While no doubt well-meant, the House of Lords’ vote to guarantee the rights of EU citizens to continue to live in Britain (report, March 2) is naive in the extreme. Without a corresponding guarantee for British citizens living in the EU, those expats will become a bargaining counter in the upcoming Brexit negotiations.

The rights of each group need to be dealt with reciprocally, and at an early stage. It is shameful that the EU hasn’t agreed to this being done before the formal negotiations commence.

The idea that Parliament should have a vote on the final draft agreement – and have the right to send the Government back to the negotiating table to get a better deal – is laughable. The EU will not agree to a better deal for Britain once the negotiations have been concluded. Richard Symington London SW17 SIR – The hand-wringing by Labour and Liberal Democrat peers over the fate of EU citizens domiciled in Britain is opportunistic and disingenuous.

Combined with predictions of postBrexit doom, such tactics for delaying the invocation of Article 50 fail to respect the public’s vote. John Naylor London SW20 SIR – Surely the appropriate time for the Lords to vote on the terms of Brexit is when those terms are published.

The Government has guaranteed that Parliament will have the chance to debate and vote on the agreement before it is signed. The Lords should raise these issues then, if the rights of EU citizens have not been resolved to their satisfaction. It is wrong to hand a trump card to the other side before the negotiations have started. Rodney Tate Bedford SIR – I watched the closing speeches of the Lords debate on Wednesday.

This was not about Brexit and the rights of foreigners in Britain, but a blatant attempt to disrupt the legitimate business of the Government. Commander Derek Beesley RN Llandudno SIR – The House of Lords has not passed a wrecking amendment. It is a revising chamber, and has fulfilled that role with dignity. The Commons should accept it with good grace and proceed with invoking Article 50.

Rights of residence already acquired do not vanish if the underlying treaty is repealed. Britain agreed that in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. As a former home secretary, Theresa May should know this. Britain is bound to uphold residency status of EU workers and their dependants now here, and the EU is similarly bound.

Collective expulsions are unlawful. Britain cannot decently deport hardworking Italians and Poles just because we fear that Spain and Cyprus, for example, might do the same to British expats. Peter J Taylor Louth, Lincolnshire