The new Eu-canada treaty shows why there’s no Brexit role for the ECJ
SIR – Your correspondent in Brussels did well (in the context of European Court of Justice jurisdiction) to ask Michel Barnier at his joint press conference with David Davis to name any country that accepted foreign jurisdiction on its territory (report, July 22). Not surprisingly, Mr Barnier couldn’t answer, because there are none, not even from among the smallest countries in the United Nations, apart from those in the EU.
About two million EU nationals live in Canada (excluding British citizens). There is no provision in the recent Eu-canada trade agreement for the European Court of Justice to have jurisdiction over the rights of its citizens resident in Canada, nor did the EU negotiators ask for any.
It is high time that Mr Davis said in public that the ECJ will not have any jurisdictional role in the United Kingdom after we have formally left in March 2019, so that negotiations can move on to more productive matters. Professor Stephen Bush
Thurston, Suffolk SIR – Your Leading article (July 15) says that “most voters, even those that voted Remain, have come to accept that Brexit will happen”.
On the contrary, Survation’s latest poll shows that 53 per cent of those polled want a second referendum on whether to accept the terms of a Brexit deal.
They clearly do not accept that Brexit will inevitably happen. Richard Bird
Professor Gerard Delanty University of Sussex
Professor A C Grayling
New College of Humanities, London Professor Joshua Silver
University of Oxford Emeritus Professor William Outhwaite
Newcastle University
SIR – As negotiations with the EU become more acrimonious, I urge my colleague David Davis, the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU, and his team to stand firm.
Not since the Second World War has so much been at stake. As I passed Mr Davis in the Division Lobby before Parliament rose for recess, I told him that negotiating our way out of the EU was the easiest task he’d ever been given. He looked a little surprised.
But how hard is it to say No?
It’s the only word in the English language the EU understands.
Demands bordering on threats will continue to rain around our negotiating team, but they must be ignored. If a sensible deal cannot be struck by March 2019, we leave without one.
Bearing in mind what a valued trading partner we are, I doubt that will happen. However, if we start prevaricating and show any weakness, Brexit might stall and we could face serious political consequences here at home.
Britain’s position could not be clearer or simpler. Mr Davis’s job is to honour the democratic vote we took last June.
Richard Drax MP (Con)
London SW1