What next for Theresa May and Brexit after Salzburg humiliation?

Your report of the stance of EU officials on Brexit (UK will shift Brexit stance in its ‘darkest hour’ claim EU officials, 18 September) and the pronouncements of Donald Tusk a few days later (May humiliated as European leaders tell her: your Brexit plan won’t work, 21 September) make depressing reading.

As a committed remainer, I have realised from the outset that, contrary to the claims made by leavers, Europe has held all the cards and would be expected to negotiate hard. However, the lack of flexibility on the European side plays into the narrative of the hard Brexiters and makes no-deal a more likely outcome. This will of course damage Europe to some extent, spread across 27 countries, but the damage to Britain will be massively greater.

There is little point in leaving with no say in European affairs but subject entirely to European regulation, so the real choice is now stay in or leave on acrimonious terms. While I believe there is now a majority to remain in Britain, there is no political channel currently to achieve this. It will be the obvious strategy of hardline leavers to blame Europe for the misery they are about to inflict on us. They may possibly achieve majority support for this if Europe continues to force Britain to a humiliating outcome. The European strategy is playing with fire and it is effectively abandoning the half of the country which voted remain.
Dr John Hurley
Gretton, Gloucestershire

• It is now unequivocal that any UK-EU trade agreement must be founded on resolution of the Northern Ireland border issue (May’s hopes for summit dashed as she hits Irish stumbling block, 21 September). The EU customs union is the lowest common denominator between the EU’s position, in that it ensures unrestricted travel of goods between the Republic and Northern Ireland, and the UK’s position, in that it ensures unrestricted travel of goods between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. There would also be no requirement for physical border checks for people if EU citizens were given the right to travel – but not work or live – without restriction within the UK-Ireland common travel area; this is a necessity as, post-Brexit, EU nationals will retain freedom of movement in Eire, and so freedom to travel into Northern Ireland.

Further, neither membership of the EU customs union nor the modified common travel area would undermine the four freedoms of the single market: the former is a pre-existing EU economic agreement; the latter is for EU citizens travelling outwith the single market, and also does not undermine freedom of movement because it does not require a reciprocal arrangement for UK nationals travelling in mainland Europe. Combined, the EU customs union and a modified common travel area would enable Northern Ireland to remain free of physical border checks for goods and people.
David Stokes
Selkirk, Scottish Borders

• What is it that the Tories don’t understand, after two-and-a-half years, about the EU’s four principles regarding the movement of people and trade? It has always been said that we could not have access to the market without the free movement of EU citizens. Also it has always been stated that there should be no reinstatement of the border in Northern Ireland. Since the vote in May 2016, the Tories have pretended that these lines were not drawn.

How dare they play with the livelihoods of millions of citizens for some chimera of their own invention, making spurious claims about future wonderful funding for the NHS once we get rid of Brussels? I weep for my grandchildren’s future in this nasty, unwelcoming island. The English diaspora will begin. Just ask today’s bright graduates.
Maggie Malone
Pill, Somerset

• Your political editor rightly states that “both factions in the Tory civil war” are “crowing over” the kick in the teeth Theresa May suffered in Salzburg (As both Tory factions crow over the PM’s humiliation, she faces an acute political challenge, 21 September). However, there is something deeply admirable about the PM’s stubborn refusal to give up, and her ability to keep soldiering on, despite the battering she’s taking over Brexit. Maybe, not for the first time in British history, the stout personal resolve of a political leader to keep on fighting what looks like a losing battle will somehow be the key factor in saving the country from the dark place in which it finds itself?
Joe McCarthy
Dublin, Ireland

• The Brexit negotiations have now reached the stage where the prime minister is holding a gun to her own country’s head and telling the other leaders that, if they don’t help us out of the unholy mess we have made for ourselves, she will pull the trigger.
John Byrne
Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire

• The most surprising thing about Theresa May’s humiliation in Salzburg is that it’s not at all surprising. Our government has said we are leaving the EU club but want all the benefits club members have. But now we have to decide if we really want to be left outside the cake shop pressing our noses against the window. We could have got to this point within days of the referendum.
Alan Healey
Bishop’s Castle, Shropshire

• Now is the time for Brexiters to travel en masse to Glastonbury to engage in some King-Arthur-waking activities.
Ian Roberts
Pett, East Sussex

• In her dealings with the EU leaders, The prime minister increasingly resembles the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail – no arms, no legs, but wanting to fight on. “’Tis but a scratch.”
Steve Fleming
Claygate, Surrey

• Theresa May: citizen of Now Where?
Mike Turnbull
North Chailey, East Sussex

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