Editorial Comment:
SIR – Believe it or not, we have just concluded the easiest part of the Brexit negotiations.
The EU, with its unelected and unsackable leaders, is starting to warm to its task. Now it has secured the money, it will soon begin to use regulatory agreement as the sine qua non for allowing us any access to the single market.
This will mean that our ability to secure non-eu trade deals will be severely restricted. After all, the EU doesn’t want to see an outwardlooking, free-trading nation on its doorstep, competing effectively with its protectionist market.
The only way we can counter this is by being ready to use our joker: switching to World Trade Organisation rules. Only that will focus the minds of the other 27 countries on what they could lose. I hope Theresa May has the courage and foresight to do it.
Camberley, Surrey SIR – If this is the best our negotiators can do, they should forget about trying to arrange any deal with the Americans. They will eat us for breakfast.
Marnhull, Dorset
SIR – Charles Moore (Comment, December 9) is sceptical about the Brexit “breakthrough”, and suspects that “millions” of others are too.
My impression is that there is now an acceptance among those who voted for and against Brexit that compromises have to be made. The situation is more difficult than either realised on polling day.
How many Leave voters had then heard of, say, Euratom or Creative Europe, or considered the Northern Ireland question? On the other hand, how many Remain voters were aware of the passionate appetite for change?
Many of us have now adjusted our views, and we are the constituency on which Mrs May has so successfully focused. Mr Moore’s vision of Europe as an Orwellian dictatorship is rightly being abandoned.
Stanningfield, Suffolk
SIR – Once we are a sovereign nation, our government will have the power to change anything that is decided in the negotiations, as Michael Gove suggests (Commentary, December 9).
Mrs May has done an excellent job and has come under severe pressure, particularly from the EU.
I understand it is a general principle that contracts agreed under duress cannot be expected to retain moral authority. I think our agreement with the EU comes under that description.
Romsey, Hampshire
SIR – Yes, Mr Gove: we can vote at the next election for a spineless Conservative Party or a nearcommunist Labour Party.
Ukip, please don’t die on us.
London N6