The EU attempts to foist responsibility for its own borders on Britain

SIR – How did the Government get manoeuvred into focusing on solving the Irish border problem?

Britain would like duty-free, seamless trade with the EU. This doesn’t require an Irish border.

The EU wants something different, which it believes will require an Irish border. If there is a problem, it is the EU’S problem, and it seems to be dragging its feet in resolving it.

Our Government needs to point this out loud and clear, and soon. Rob Joynson

Marshchapel, Lincolnshire

SIR – Theresa May said she would deliver Brexit, but there would have to be compromises.

No, Mrs May, we voted for Brexit: leaving without compromise. Mary L Wylie

Newton Abbot, Devon

SIR – Should the Prime Minister betray her pledges to the British people and agree to a deal that keeps us in the customs union as a lackey of Brussels, she might survive temporarily – but her party would be destroyed in a very bitter political revolution. Professor Alan Sked

London School of Economics

SIR – Both sides in the Brexit debate have been arrogantly intolerant of one another, given that neither won a clear mandate. Jacob Rees-mogg (Comment, May 15) is no exception.

The Brexiteers won by a wafer-thin majority, and voters were not consulted on the exact terms of withdrawal. Thus any failure to consider the possibility of a customs partnership would be a betrayal of practically half the British electorate.

Mr Rees-mogg invokes the principle of democratic fairness, but withdrawal on his terms would be profoundly undemocratic. Brexit, with its inevitable harm to British trade in Europe, is too important for us not to consider all the options. If that results in compromise, so be it. Patrick Campbell

El Campello, Alicante, Spain SIR – I’m angered by the Remainers in the Tory party who use the idea of “Cabinet collective responsibility” as a reason to admonish Brexit-supporting members for publicly challenging the soft Brexit for which we are headed.

If you are part of a government that is executing what the country has voted for by referendum, then I think it honourable to voice opinions until a decision is made. It is important that the Brexiteers’ position is articulated with vigour and enthusiasm. Nick Trevor

London SW4

SIR – In 1895 HG Wells published a novel called The Time Machine, in which a time traveller was dismayed to find a snowflake race called the Eloi blithely walking to their doom – to be cooked in pots and eaten by the cunning Morlocks on the cue of ancient war sirens.

Surely such a dystopia could never come to pass? Richard Egerton

Sheffield, South Yorkshire