Today, Britain may escape becoming a vassal state to a protectionist EU

SIR – Today’s Cabinet meeting is the decisive moment. Imagine if our grandchildren had to look back in the history books and learn that today we shied away from this momentous decision through timidity and fear, and ended up as a vassal state of a declining and protectionist EU.

I ask Theresa May to seize this moment and deliver what she has always promised – a clean and true Brexit. Dr Robin Brooke-smith

Shrewsbury

SIR – I, and, I suspect, many millions more, just wish Mrs May would stop pussy-footing around appeasing every demand from the EU dictators. Doesn’t she realise that whatever solution she proposes, there will always be another demand waiting to take its place? Jack Harding

Warlingham, Surrey

SIR – I can’t imagine what form it will take, but if a deal is eventually done which means that we are still, virtually, in the EU there will certainly be a massive backlash from the 17.4 million leavers. Clive Green

Bristol

SIR – Theresa May could end today as the recruiting officer for a newly resurgent Ukip. Michael Mcgough

Member, Ukip National Executive Committee

Loughton, Essex

SIR– The approach of our elected representatives to Brexit negotiations has been to tell the opposing party that they won’t walk away, and then to commit themselves to accepting their least preferred option as a backstop.

Any businessman who has ever negotiated will know that this is tantamount to being taken for a ride. Oliver Davies

Richmond, Surrey

SIR – May I add two points to Owen Paterson’s fine analysis of Brexit realities (Comment, July 4)? First, Article 50 was added to the Lisbon Treaty almost as an afterthought.

Its primary purpose was to make it virtually impossible for member states to leave the EU. So it was naive folly to invoke it.

Secondly, the EU has always welcomed lobbying by big companies and business organisations wanting new regulations to discourage new entrants to their markets. In my five years in the European Parliament (2004-09) I met scores of such groups.

Justification was simple. Officially, the higher the entry criteria the better consumers were protected. In reality, any start-up business faced huge compliance costs. Ashley Mote

Alresford, Hampshire

SIR – Presumably further delay in implementing Brexit will follow a lack of agreement regarding the fate of the continental double-peck greeting. Tony Lawson

Slough, Berkshire