The cost of Brexit

SIR – First the EU demanded a €50billion Brexit bill, then it increased the figure to €100billion.

I have searched the Lisbon Treaty in vain for any reference to financial obligations on leaving; no doubt the Commission has been equally unsuccessful, otherwise it would have been trumpeting the discovery.

I have also examined the EU accounts for any references to contingent debt relating to leaving obligations, but again found nothing.

It follows that we owe the EU nothing in relation to the past, and any contribution in the future can only relate to continuing participation in individual EU programmes. Patrick de Pelet

Templecombe, Somerset

SIR – Using the term “divorce” builds acrimony into the Brexit negotiations. We are leaving a club which no longer suits us. We shall still be friendly. John Robinson

Southwell, Nottinghamshire

SIR – On the question of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW), the Government finds itself between a rock and a hard place.

Theresa May has pledged to end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) but to continue Britain’s membership of the EAW – which, to quote Command 8671, “is subject to the full jurisdiction of the ECJ and the enforcement powers of the European Commission”. The real iniquity of the EAW is that it authorises arrest without evidence and is therefore a negation of the Habeas Corpus Act (1679). Until the adoption of the EAW via the Extradition Act 2003, this had long afforded British subjects protection against state-inspired coercion.

David Davis’s plan to give our Supreme Court supremacy in matters of extradition is welcome, but must come with a commitment to restore the absolute requirement for accompanying prima facie evidence in any extradition request. Christopher Gill

Aberdyfi, Gwynedd