SINCE 2016 the Prime Minister has insisted that “no deal is better than a bad deal”. The latest information is that considerable progress has been made and that trade talks will commence shortly.

We have not been informed of the detailed agreements to achieve this position but, given the recalcitrance of the EU team to date, it is fair to assume that concessions have been made by David Davis and others that might not be to our liking and we are left to interpret what the future will be based on recent pronouncements.

It seems that we will on April 1, 2019 be outside the EU and a rationalising period of two years thereafter will elapse before we are totally “free”. During the next three years, therefore, we will be subject to all obligations of a member of the EU but with no representation in the corridors of power. All of those onerous obligations to which we have been subject and which in part determined the “out” vote will have by the end of the divorce talks been extant for five years .

Presumably the foregoing is being accepted by Westminster as a “good deal”. We are left to determine ourselves what the quid pro quo for agreeing to such arrangements by the UK team might be. The attitude of the EU so far and the absence of any hint of empathy or sympathy by Messrs Barnier, Juncker and Tusk engenders little confidence that a good deal will have been obtained.

The judgment of Theresa May and several ministers has been justifiably criticised. The oft-repeated assertions that all is well are daily exposed as rhetoric to rescue the Government from policy failures. Will the Brexit deal be yet another?

John Hamilton,

1 Jackson Place, Bearsden.

RECENTLY I was given a copy of a national newspaper dated 20 December 1967, the main headline of which, given our present status(predicament?) in connection with Brexit, was of more than passing interest.

It reported on a Council of Ministers meeting, held the day before, when France voted against negotiations for British membership of the Common Market. In effect, it was a French veto as the other five member states (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy and Germany) supported the view of the Commission that negotiations should open. The outcome of that meeting came as no surprise because President De Gaulle had, in the previous month, repeated his rejection of a UK approach to enter negotiations in 1963.

Then, he had said “L’Angleterre ce n’est pas grand chose”. In the period to 1967 his views had not changed. He also commented that the UK wanted to leave the free trade area of seven states, Efta, and sought to join the Common Market on its own terms. President De Gaulle appeared to suggest that the UK was trying to have its cake and eat it. Ring any bells ?

The Foreign Office, in response to the 1967 rejection, said there was no question of Britain’s application being withdrawn and that the impasse “can only delay the inevitable progress toward a united Europe, including Britain”. Today, the Foreign Office is singing another tune from the diplomatic song book. Eventually, after the resignation of De Gaulle in 1969, Britain negotiated its way in under Edward Heath, when Prime Minister, in 1970 and the rest is not quite history yet. There are those who believe we joined the wrong institution at the wrong time.

It is interesting to reflect that the referendum in 1975, under Harold Wilson’s administration, produced a result of 68 per cent in favour of staying in and 32 per cent for coming out. Clearly a sea change too place in public opinion between 1975 and 2016 when 52 per cent voted to leave and 48 per cent to stay. It would appear that familiarity in the period between the two referenda had not bred popularity. We have moved from being desperate to get in to a state of ambiguity and uncertainty, notwithstanding Theresa May’s utterances to the effect that “Brexit means Brexit”. The case for another referendum, when the terms of departure are known, becomes stronger by the day.

Ian W Thomson,

38 Kirkintilloch Road,

Lenzie.

DO you remember the good old days when the SNP simply blamed all of Scotland’s woes on Westminster and the UK?

It was irritating but at least reassuringly familiar. These days Brexit is thrown into the mix. Earlier in the week, disregarding that our tourist industry is booming because of the Brexit-induced weak pound, SNP MSP Angus MacDonald tells us we must do all we can to protect Scottish tourism from Brexit.

Now we learn that hundreds of Scottish nurses are leaving to work overseas because of poor pay and conditions. Yet up pops a Scottish Government spokesman (or spin doctor) who, yes you guessed right, blames Brexit.

A cynic might suggest that the Nationalists are relentlessly preparing the ground to demand a second referendum on independence before the next Holyrood election, citing Brexit as the reason.

Would First Minister Nicola Sturgeon be so transparent? Surely not.

Martin Redfern,

Woodcroft Road, Edinburgh.

I LOATHE Tony Blair and his pseudo-socialism but simple chance dictates that sometimes he will get it right.

He is spot on when he says that the Brexit referendum was fought on a false, I would maintain deliberately false, prospectus and that the country is obviously going to pay a horrendous price as a result. If the outcome of a referendum is unalterable and binding, why have we ignored the original popular decision to join the EU? If the voice of the people is to be heard via binding referendums let’s have one on Trident or nationalising the banks or abolishing poverty.

In this era of austerity and pending Brexit penalty payments, there is a solution.

If the Bank of England can print money to rescue the banking system let it do the same to rescue the country. Now that’s a referendum I’d vote for, as would every man Jack in the country bar the top one per cent.

David J Crawford,

85 Whittingehame Court,

1300 Great Western Road, Glasgow.

NIGEL Farage has called on people for questions ahead of his forthcoming meeting with the EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier ( “EU negotiator Barnier to meet Farage”, The Herald, January 5).

I have a question: do Bombast, Rant, Evasion, Xenophobia, Intransigence and Tunnel vision run in the family, Mr Farage?

R Russell Smith,

96 Milton Road, Kilbirnie.