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Theresa May's chaotic approach to Brexit only serves to highlight its absurdity

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Saturday 03 March 2018 13:18 GMT
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The Prime Minister’s attempt to clarify her vision for Brexit on Friday left a number of questions unanswered
The Prime Minister’s attempt to clarify her vision for Brexit on Friday left a number of questions unanswered

It is clear from the continued chaotic performance of the Prime Minister and her ministers – and from the EU’s reaction to their proposals – that Brexit cannot be achieved.

What has been wrong from the outset is the total lack of understanding by those who insisted on a referendum that constitutional change cannot legally come about by majority vote. An infinite number of studies have shown that public opinion is unstable and that a poll held on one occasion will be very likely to have different results if repeated.

Countries with a written constitution would not be in such a mess, as they have special arrangements for amendment. Any government with common sense and knowledge of constitutional law would have ensured that such a divisive issue would be decided only by an extraordinary majority at the very least.

Larry Johnston
Modrydd, Brecon

Theresa May is full of good intentions but has no understanding of Europe. It is a large, homogeneous trading bloc that has set out to protect its citizens by establishing a level playing field with high standards for product safety and employee rights. It will happily enter into an agreement with the UK that maintains the level playing field with those standards. Any agreement will have to be enforced by a judicial system that accepts those standards. The EU is not being difficult when it insists on this.

The US is different: it is a trading bloc that protects its businesses. Any agreement with the US will have to give US businesses the right to do things their way.

Where the UK political parties have failed is in recognising that Europe is protective of its citizens, and by and large its standards are the ones we should aspire to, not object to merely because we are only a bit player in developing them.

Jon Hawksley

After sitting through May’s vacuous, vapid, Mansion House snoozefest, delivered in her inimitable side-of-mouth way, I wonder whether she should be known as the UK’s duck-billed platitude boss?

Owen Leeds
Preston

“Having your cake and eating it” is a common refrain in the Brexit negotiations.

Surely this is a given.

Perhaps someone could explain what is the point of having your cake and not eating it?

Alan Gregory
Warrington, Cheshire

Brits living in the EU will be better off after Brexit than those of us stuck in the UK

To the reader who wrote the letter in the 1 March edition, speaking of having been left feeling “landlocked in France”, let me first say I share and feel his or her pain.

However, I would be intrigued to understand why they feel it is a failing of the EU that has left them in this situation, when it was our country that voted to leave, and it is our Government that is seeking to tear up free movement.

I am a UK citizen and, I’d like to think, every bit as much a Europhile as your correspondent, the one difference being that I have yet to exercise my right to live and work in another EU country.

From where I’m standing, his or her deal – of being allowed to choose to stay in either France or the UK – seems better than the one I’m likely to get, which will see me and millions of other Britons stripped of all rights to live outside the UK once free movement ends.

John Griffiths
Haddenham, Aylesbury

Designating it a special economic zone might solve the Northern Ireland dilemma

In its basic form, bread is comprised of several unappetising ingredients. However, blended together and heated, you get the stuff of life.

What may solve the Northern Ireland border question could be an added fourth ingredient to the mutually irreconcilable three ambitions of the UK Government – to avoid a hard border, leave the customs union and ensure there are no barriers or checks on goods moving between Britain and Northern Ireland – and a bit of applied intellectual heat.

With agreement from the British and Irish Governments, and the Northern Ireland executive, the whole of Northern Ireland could be declared a joint (UK/Ireland) special economic zone. The EU allows for these and there are many in existence. It could be administered by the Irish North South Ministerial Council.

Geoff Naylor
Winchester, Hampshire

We should allow Leveson to finish his inquiry

You are wrong in your leader to conclude that the time for a second Leveson Inquiry has passed. If it had been proposed to investigate scandals in any other business, I believe you would have been forcefully making the case to go ahead.

Leveson was very mindful that freedom of the press should not be impeded by excessive regulation but he balanced that with concern for the victims of press abuse. They have been badly treated for many years and he provided a way to put that right.

We need to know the full extent of criminal activity, especially involving the press and the police. Then we need a system of redress for wrongdoing that is really independent and proportionate. Leveson did a brilliant job and you should not place yourselves against his very sensible proposals.

John Doylend
Bungay, Suffolk

Our reaction to wintry conditions is snow joke

I have been singularly unimpressed at the reaction to a few inches of snow in our city.

I dug the car out this morning and went for a drive as I couldn’t get a bus – despite local bus companies having skilled staff perfectly capable of driving in these conditions. All the major roads were clear of snow. Side roads were passable with care, although with no sign of any salting even on comparatively busy ones like my own. And our local supermarket, with empty shelves reminding one of the best of Soviet-era Russia, had closed its car park.

I know it’s different out in the rural idylls that some people insist on inhabiting but Edinburgh city centre is affected only by the inhibitions of those who insist on listening to government baby talk about red warnings, instead of making their own risk assessments – assessments that are not assisted by the manifest refusal of the Met Office and broadcasters to give snowfall in feet and inches!

What would happen if it was winter?

John Hein
Edinburgh

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