The benefits of Brexit just keep rolling in – or is it the opposite?

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The Brexit benefits just keep not rolling in. The government’s failure (or refusal?) to agree a deal with Norway to allow the UK fleet access to its fishing grounds shows just how weak and feeble Global Britain is.

Until we know the terms of the “fair offer”, which supposedly we put on the table, it would appear that the “no deal is better than any deal” mentality still reigns in government.

Betrayal of the only sector that could reasonably have expected a net benefit from the UK’s leaving the EU isn’t even the half of it. This is incompetence and incapability beyond belief, where the only measure of success is that we have yet again cut off our nose to spite our face.

Charles Wood

Birmingham

As an avid opponent of our membership of the European Union and an active campaigner for our eventual extrication therefrom, I must express the dismay and disappointment no doubt felt by many at this week’s news.

I refer of course to the EU parliament’s “rubber stamping” of the poorly negotiated Brexit Agreement (with all its potential pitfalls for the UK) and also to our failure to strike a new agreement with Norway over fishing rights.

Remembering as I do the political incompetence which characterised our then government’s indecent haste to join the Franco-German alliance that morphed into the EU, I have, since the announcement of our welcome decision to leave it, been concerned that our eventual departure would be similarly characterised. Sadly, these two events, though 48 years apart, have indeed shared that commonality, with our fishing industry remaining the “sacrificial lamb” throughout this whole sorry process.

How shamefully ironic that our current prime minister, who apparently likes to think of himself as the reincarnation of Winston Churchill, has actually proved himself to be more the embodiment of Edward Heath!

Geoffrey Lazell

Norfolk

Border crossing

Keith Poole of Basingstoke points out that 1 million Scottish people live outside Scotland, and I’m sure he is correct, however there are also plenty of English people living in Scotland. His implication was that not all Scottish people like living in Scotland.

We moved from Lincolnshire to the Aberdeen area in 1984 and wouldn’t dream of moving back to England.

We now live in southwest Scotland and one of our local estate agents told me they are inundated with English people looking to buy property north of the border. Some of them are Scots returning to Scotland to retire. Some, like Joanna Lumley, have a second home here. Joanna is also active in our local community.

So, Keith Poole must surely realise there is two-way traffic, Scots often move away for work but not necessarily because they don’t like living in Scotland and, in my experience, since English politics has shifted to the right, the number wishing to move north is increasing.

Alan Lammin

Mainshead, Dumfries

Memory lane

Oh how I loved Katy Brand’s column (1 May). Her take on “aspirational shopping” in John Lewis was sublime. Now I will admit I have a very soft spot for luxury cushions and I know just the velvet cushion with the partridge she is talking about!

She is bang on the money, in my local store Saturdays would follow a regular consumer pattern. A delicious sustaining breakfast followed by a sortie around the home furnishings was pure delight, with items desired but not always purchased – but they all planted a seed of attainability.

Judith Daniels

Great Yarmouth

Choice made

Regarding Keir Starmer and the wallpaper, (Ian McNicholas in Letters), have you noticed the antics of Boris Johnson lately? If triviality is your decider in the choice of a leader, surely Sir Keir is your man!

William Park

Lytham St Annes

A number problem

I am sorry to say that there is one final conclusion to the “telephone number gate” issue. Anyone in government who steadfastly refuses to change their private telephone number over a period of 15 years, against all the best advice, can only be described as “Boris no-mates Johnson”.

John Evans

West Sussex