The government has a lot to answer for in how it’s handled the Brexit trade talks

Send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

I sense we have a no-deal fait accompli on our hands now as Britain abandons hope of a post-Brexit trade deal. I had a dire feeling that this would be be the final destination all the way along.

To secure a mutually advantageous trade arrangement for Britain and the EU seemed, in such a short negotiating period, fanciful at the best of times – but to attain one during the coronavirus pandemic was basically unachievable.

This dire travesty appears to be going under the radar when there was a solution. Why couldn’t the transition period have been extended as the sane and pragmatic solution? Why has there been this brinkmanship, which will badly affect this country? There is always the fallacious notion that it will all come good in the end, but this appears nonsensical in the present climate.

This government has a lot to answer for in this respect.

Judith A Daniels
Great Yarmouth

Election interference

With the release of the Russian report, we learn that Britain should be much troubled by possible Russian corruption of our democratic processes and investigations should be launched.

Russian meddling is deemed “espionage”, but should we not, then, be all the more troubled by the actual and known corruption of our democratic processes – the “espionage” within – through the distortions of wealth, unequal access to the media and the dubiety of constituency boundaries – to say nothing of how requirements for voter registration and for vote casting impinge more heavily on society’s dispossessed than on those who possess much?

Peter Cave
London

It’s true that there may have been Russian intervention in the Brexit referendum in 2016. It’s also true that we shall never know if there really was, because Theresa May and Boris Johnson both refused to hold an inquiry.

But what is perhaps most worrying of all is that so many of the great British public meekly accepted everything they were told by, among others, our current prime minister.

Susan Alexander
Frampton Cotterell

Anti-vaxxer clarity

Over the last four years there has been a noticeable proliferation of Orwellian government “doublespeak”.

When potentially good news with regard to encouraging signs that a plausible Covid-19 vaccine has successfully navigated the initial research phases is announced, there ought to be a moment of thankful appreciation for those who are striving to achieve a near miracle within a very short timeframe.

However, when this announcement is promptly followed by Matt Hancock speaking out against the further risks to public health created by those who describe themselves as vaccination deniers, does this serve only to muddy the waters?

I cannot be the only person to be confused by the fact that the health secretary himself was tasked with making this specific statement. Is the fact that he was a “shot in the arm” for the anti-vaxxers” or not?

Nigel Plevin
Somerset

Blackpool adventure

I was really disappointed to read Jenny Eclair’s horribly negative article about Blackpool. Yes, it is one of the more deprived towns in the northwest but it certainly doesn’t deserve the comments made by Jenny.

Has she been to Blackpool in the last five years? There are new hotels, there are renovations galore, great transport including an excellent tram system, and miles of lovely beaches.

Yes, there are a few people who come to get drunk and worse, but what seaside town doesn’t have a few of those?

When the time is right, give it a try.

Mary Park
Lytham St Annes

Dropped expertise

Now we know that Ruth May was dropped from the Downing Street “Five O’Clock Follies” because she failed to toe the prime minister’s line on Durham Dominic’s trip north (England’s chief nurse confirms she was ‘dropped’ from No.10 press conference, 21 July). Could that possibly mean that a special adviser is more important to the prime minister than the country’s chief nursing officer?

Could it mean that when the prime minister emerged to “clap for carers” he wasn’t being sincere? More like claptrap in my view.

Mike White
Chippenham