Get rid of Brexit bureaucrats and let British politicians deal with their EU equals

Brexit negotiations are proving frustratingly slow, but who is surprised at this? Around the table the UK is faced on the EU side by numerous selfimportant, unelected, empirebuilding bureaucrats whose career, status and income priorities are to ensure that Brexit fails, or at least discourages imitators by harshly punishing the UK for its temerity.

Progress is assured if these “monkeys” are dispensed with and Uk-elected politicians deal instead with Eu-elected politicians – “organ-grinder to organ-grinder”. EU politicians know full well that they cannot afford to lose the €60 billion pa favourable trade balance with the UK and so are, unlike the “monkeys”, fully motivated to expedite a smooth exit and a fair deal for both parties. Satisfactorily done and dusted by Christmas 2017?

TIM FLINN Garvald, East Lothian Lord Duncan (“It’s time to make Brexit work for us”, Perspective, 9 September) is a details man who seems to know nothing about the devolved administrations’ complaints that they are not being listened to.

He surrendered manfully to Leave’s propaganda line about it being dishonourable to consider further opposition to “the people’s will” – “It’s incumbent on all to respect the decision,” he writes.

I know Leave voters who think it is perfectly legitimate to vote for Scottish independence again if a pretext for a referendum comes up – yet they proclaim this propaganda line about the will of the people. Given the widespread lies of the referendum campaign, it is disgraceful that Remain MPS won’t take the view that if things turn out quite different from what we were promised that a new referendum should be held. lord duncan will continue to put party before country.

ANDREW VASS Corbiehill Place, Edinburgh There is trouble ahead in Europe. The European Court of Justice has rejected legal action by Hungary and Slovakia seeking to avoid accepting refugees under an Eu-wide plan (your report 9 September). EU nations had agreed in September 2015 to relocate 160,000 of the 1.6 million refugees who had arrived in Greece and Italy since 2014.

These “refugees” only came since Angela Merkel invited them so Germany should be responsible. Hungary, Slovakia and Poland have refused to accept a single refugee.

Viktor Orban angrily accused Jean-claude Juncker of trying to change Hungary’s culture and history and allow in the “Trojan Horse of terrorism”. Mr Orban added that “the decision made, even if it was legal, was a bad decision which the member states can’t and won’t carry out”.

Hungary, Slovakia and Poland have lit the fuse for the demise of an unaccountable, unelected, mega-expensive, undemocratic, corrupt and dictatorial EU. Others will follow their lead.

CLARK CROSS Springfield Road, Linlithgow

prevalent in British education for many years. I have worked in education for over 30 years on both sides of the border and know for a fact that poor behaviour is no different in Scotland to that in England and this has always been the case.

The real issue is a social problem which no government, Labour, Conservative or SNP, has been prepared to grapple with. It’s just too easy to lay the blame on teachers and schools for perceived “failures” while taking the credit for any achievements.

The same dialogue was taking place in the 1980s and 1990s, with teachers complaining of inadequate funding and a complete lack of support from successive governments.

In all this time nothing has changed in any part of the UK, with schools being forced to include disruptive children despite their negative effects on the education of the vast majority of fantastic, hardworking students.

Until governments in Holyrood and Westminster stop trying to get education on the cheap – and they’ve been doing so since Victorian times, cramming as many pupils as possible into one class – nothing will change.

That said, there are amazing things going on in every school in the country despite the constant criticism in the media and from politicians.

Mr Forbes Grattan’s comments are ill-informed and completely unhelpful. D MITCHELL

The Glebe Cramond, Edinburgh