EU stubbornness

SIR – EU negotiators seem not for turning on either the size of our Brexit bill or the ludicrous principle of refusing to discuss what we’ll get for our money in terms of a trade deal. Meanwhile time marches on.

It’s time to recognise that we’re flogging a dead horse and prepare for a “no deal, no bill” Brexit.

SIR – Tim Beechey-newman (Letters, November 14) highlights the positive views of Sir James Dyson on our ability to flourish following Brexit. This belief is shared by other industrialists.

In earlier times, power and influence were shared between those who had been elected and prominent employers in industry and commerce. The public would have sought guidance from local figures employing large workforces as readily as from elected individuals.

Decades of de-industrialisation have concentrated power among the elected strand, whose closest link with the economy tends to be the financial sector. After Brexit, we should encourage re-industrialisation.

RP L Morris- jones

Rugby, Warwickshire

SIR – Has Owen Paterson (“Britain should become the next Singapore”, Comment, November 21) bothered to check Singapore’s record on the death penalty, for example, or its laws concerning same-sex relationships?

Jonathan Fox

Sternfied, Suffolk