Contrary to what Jeremy Hunt says, EU leaders aren’t ‘inherently unreasonable’ – the prime minister’s Chequers plan is

Jeremy Hunt’s latest outburst, damning all 27 the leaders of the EU nations for their discourtesy against Theresa May and all British people, is a classic. He meant that “these foreigners” have dared NOT to do what they have been told they MUST do to “support” the UK. Hardly the stuff of diplomatic persuasion, but an all too common experience for ordinary, taxpaying British citizens, increasingly perceived by the Conservatives as plebs daring to express concerns contrary to Conservative policies.

When it comes to power, in the EU, 27 is the larger number. In Britain, on the other hand, 326 majority MPs, of just one political persuasion, dictate much of the way the British population of more than 66 million are required to live, allowing for some devolved powers.

For each citizen, the “power” percentage of 0.00048902. For each MP it is 20,448,773.00613. And it is called “democracy”.

Malcolm MacIntyre-Read
Much Wenlock, Shropshire

Eurocrat bullies

As a Scot living and working in London for a long time now, I have never supported the Tories .

But I now back Theresa May because I feel she is out on a limb and the Eurocrats are at their bullying best. Good on our prime minister for having a backbone. I voted Leave and it’s still Leave.

Stewart Harvey
Address supplied

Having read some of the reader letters, I cannot understand how anything but the bullyboy tactics of some of the European leaders wasn’t expected and ultimately planned for. Irrelevant of the will of the people, the expectation of the people was that the elected UK government had the ability to act upon Brexit in a credible, honest, structured and direct manner. But this assumption has made an absolute ass out of “u” and “me”.

This mind-melting incompetence is nothing more than historic.

Gareth Reid
Address supplied

What Brexit is really about

A year ago I asked for a cogent argument for the Leave campaign; it would seem it is about time the wealthy business people started confessing that it is all about their own personal profit and not the rights or needs of their workers, or for the benefit of the UK as a society. I would have a grudging respect if they started being a bit more honest.

Laura Dawson
Harpenden, Hertfordshire

After yet another failed (doomed before liftoff) attempt to persuade the EU to tear up their rules to try and help Theresa May somehow hold her party together, it must be apparent to more and more people that the past two years of efforts by May and her “negotiators” has had nothing to do with finding a solution that is good for the people of the UK, but simply a series of increasingly desperate measures to try and prevent her party tearing itself apart.

Unfortunately, this is looking less and less achievable: the hard-right Brexiteers, led by Jacob Rees-Mogg’s ERG & egged on by Boris Johnson, David Davies and others, will never agree to a compromise that preserves any form of customs union or single market, and I hope and believe that parliament will have the guts to prevent May from leading the country over a cliff-edge no-deal destruction of the British economy.

If only we had an opposition that actually opposed the government, rather than indulging in a similar inward looking and self-obsessed struggle to again tear itself in two.

Stephen Marr
Kalamunda, Australia

Britain is on a cliff edge

If you’re driving with passengers in the car and you see a cliff edge ahead, do you a) drive straight on and over the edge, or b) stop, apologise to your passengers, turn the car around, and take a different direction?

If your answer is the former, you should be immediately disqualified before a serious accident happens!

Sarah Pegg
Seaford, East Sussex

We need freedom of movement

Why are so many public and political leaders hell-bent on giving up the personal freedom to travel and live anywhere in Europe? What is it about the free movement of citizens or the customs union that so frightens Ms May? The perception that we are overrun with foreign nationals has been shown to be incorrect over the past two years; the actual fact is that they are a vital part of keeping our services and economic growth alive. Any trade agreement, no matter who it is with, reduces a nation’s control to do as it pleases, so let’s not ditch our personal freedom.

Quentin King
Address supplied