Conceding loads of money in EU negotiations will get Britain nowhere

SIR – It is ludicrous that the BBC assumes the EU agenda and timetable are the only formula for successful Brexit negotiations. The EU is only interested in money, British money, and loads of it. If we conceded this up front, nothing adequate would ensue.

The EU would then plead higher priorities – the unstable euro, immigration, Catalonia, bankrupt Greece ... Its cumbersome system would take years to reach a trade agreement. It is not for nothing that it has no trade agreements with China, India, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, and much of the rest of the world. Protectionism and Byzantine procedures have blocked progress.

The last time Britain conceded on money – Tony Blair’s agreement on slashing the Thatcher rebate in exchange for agricultural reform – the EU took the money, and we are still waiting.

Theresa May, the Prime Minister, and David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, are right to state: “Nothing is decided until everything is decided.” And they are right to determine our own deadline of March 29 2019. Jacques Arnold

MP for Gravesham (Con) 1987-97 West Malling, Kent

SIR – The EU’S negotiating tactics become outrageous. They are also a waste of time. It is well known that (as the European Council has agreed), nothing is decided until everything is decided. Therefore, EU cherry-picking of three matters, mainly money, to resolve before post-brexit trading arrangements is wilfully obstructive.

It does not even conform with Article 50. This states that the EU should “negotiate and conclude an agreement with that [departing] State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union”. So far, the EU has refused to take account of anything much other than its appetite for Britain’s money.

Even if the EU obtains an absurd concession of, say, €30billion (£26billion) to €50billion, this will disappear off the table if it is impossible to agree a “framework for the future relationship” acceptable to Britain. That being the case, the EU manoeuvrings of the past six months have been a complete waste of energy.

It is shocking that the EU is happy to play poker with the highly sensitive situation in Ireland, which can only be resolved once the future relationship, which it refuses to discuss, is clear.

Britain has bankrolled the EU at £7billion to £10billion annually. It is shameful to see ingratitude and hostility now from countries that have been our closest allies. This behaviour hardly prompts regret at the decision to leave the EU. Gregory Shenkman

London W8

SIR – Am I alone in longing for the moment when David Davis finally loses his patience and flounces out of the Brexit negotiations? Lauren Groom

Teffont Evias, Wiltshire