The metropolitan mafia acting to stop Brexit is not liberal but a narrow-minded enemy of liberty

sir – Allister Heath (“Remainers think they can cancel Brexit”, Comment, December 6) is surely spot-on in suggesting that our former public school/london club establishment has been replaced by a “cadre of uber-meritocratic technocrat or lawyer-kings who, for the general good, need to take all the real decisions”. Unfortunately, they also seem to be unpatriotic Left-wingers.

These civil servants and opinionformers have for so long denigrated Britain and its allegedly wicked colonial past that they ignore our hard-won freedoms and the virtues of our legal system, with its principles of habeas corpus, innocence until proved guilty, trial by jury and lay magistrates – a system far superior to anything practised on the Continent and for that reason alone worth preserving, along with our sovereignty.

It doesn’t occur to them that if indeed we were to run out of penicillin and suffer logjams on the road to Dover, it would be entirely because the EU had chosen to declare war on a friendly country.

They’re often referred to as the liberal-left elite, but to me they’re a metropolitan mafia, more narrow-minded than any Tory squire in a shire and infinitely more spiteful. Anthony Curtis

Cavendish, Suffolk sir – Those who seek to support the Prime Minister’s deal assert that, as neither party wants the backstop to come into effect, there is little prospect of it doing so.

Even taking that at face value (which I do not), can they not appreciate that from the EU’S perspective the real benefit of the backstop is not its implementation but the fact that its existence provides them with an immensely powerful negotiating position from which to force the Prime Minister and her negotiators to agree to unreasonable terms for the second phase?

Given what has happened with the Withdrawal Agreement, there is every reason to think this will be achieved. Malcolm Dutchman-smith

Nantwich, Cheshire

sir – Across the whole of the EU, we see the rise of abhorrent Right-wing politics. Extremism is the inevitable outcome when governments do not listen to swathes of the general public. It is something Britain has avoided by ensuring a measure of democracy.

If there is no Brexit, 17.4 million people will realise that none of the mainstream parties represents them. If the country is very lucky, it will get Jeremy Corbyn at the next election. But Parliament and the wider political apparatus need to dwell on the nightmare of extremist politics before they block Brexit and ignore the majority of the voting public. J A Yates

Taunton, Somerset

sir – On Thursday, I listened to the Prime Minister being interviewed by John Humphrys about the Brexit deal.

It may indeed be the best deal she can strike with the EU negotiators, but the inclusion of the Northern Irish backstop, with no unilateral right to leave that arrangement, gives the EU the lever they need to extract the most favourable terms in the all-important next phase of the negotiations, on our future trading relationships, including the very contentious rights for EU fishing fleets to be allowed to continue to fish in UK waters.

The backstop terms are not acceptable in their present form and should be firmly rejected. The people’s will expressed in the referendum must prevail: to leave the EU and regain national sovereignty. That is the instruction given to Parliament. George Mercer

Cardiff

sir – If the EU is prepared to delay Brexit (Leading Article, December 6), Mrs May should swallow her pride and accept an extension to the Article 50 deadline. Another three months would take it past the next EU parliamentary elections. After that, the Eurosceptic presence is likely to be much higher and a bigger threat to Michel Barnier, Donald Tusk et al – rendering Brexit a minor irritation. Tony Gadd

Southport, Lancashire

sir – As Sir Bill Cash has pointed out (Leading Article, December 6), only the legal advice relating to the backstop has been published. Some 2,000 more pages of advice have not been released by the Attorney General. The Government therefore still stands in contempt of Parliament.

Sir William Jaffray Bt

London SW3

sir – Margaret Beckett, the Labour politician, now claims we did not know what we voted for in the referendum. How can this be, when the Government sent us all a document explaining the Armageddon that would follow a Leave vote? Stephen Bedford

North Cookley, Worcestershire

sir – Take comfort from Theresa May and David Attenborough. The Northern Irish backstop will be temporary – until the end of the world. David Cook

Farnham, Surrey