We need a cross-party team to negotiate Brexit

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Theresa May no longer has the majority she wanted to move forward with Brexit negotiations (PA)

The result of the election has put a question mark over how Theresa May can possibly negotiate and run the government with such a tiny and fragile majority.

It seemed to me that while I don’t like the thought of leaving the EU, nearly all politicians accept the verdict of the referendum. So would there be a possibility that the main parties take the Brexit negotiations out of politics: if Ken Clarke was joined by Keir Starmer, and the former MP and EU negotiator Nick Clegg and Angus Robertson came together to head up the UK team.

It would take out the heat and perhaps come up with a Brexit, but one that the EU and Parliament might be able to achieve and accept. There would be trouble from the headbangers but we might just stop the disaster of no deal.

Peter Downey
Wellow

What is absolutely clear, after the black and white of the question and answer of the referendum last year, is that there is a rainbow of opinion. What is astonishing is that a Prime Minister, yet again, has put their party before the country’s interests, and asked a simple question. What should have been predictable is that the answer remains multi-coloured, and therefore fragmented. The Government is now, also, fragmented.

The question of Brexit remains a national issue, not a party issue. A weakened Prime Minister must negotiate with strength. The only way to do this now is to have a multi-party negotiating team in Brussels. Let the view of the British people be represented fully, rather than partially.

Dr Chris James
Highfield

The Tories are putting the peace process in grave danger

Ms May gained more seats than Labour and won the electoral vote. That gives her the right to govern but not at the cost of clinging to power by relying on the DUP. This puts peace in Northern Ireland in grave danger. One act of terrorism arising as a result of concessions would mark the end of Tory rule for a decade.

The narrative of calling the election in the national interest is still believed in some quarters and can still be made believable. The national interest therefore should inform the PM’s next move. This should be to offer Labour a coalition arrangement in the leave negotiations. If the cost is a limited suite of corporatist measures, then so be it. If the Queen’s speech included the repealing of student fees then that might serve to satisfy the youth protest vote at the next election.

May has a choice. Cling on now with a weak and faltering negotiating platform that leads to a no-confidence vote in the autumn and five years of ultra-left government thereafter. Or regain public confidence through big-time magnanimity. She should call Corbyn’s bluff on his claim to be “ready to serve”. Unwillingness on his part will remind the electorate that he really is just a life-long protester and is as unfit to govern as the polls indicated back in April.

Paul Cook
Ealing

Let this be the end of the Tories

For how much longer will the British electorate and the other political parties allow the Tory party to wreak havoc?

The EU referendum, David Cameron’s subsequent rapid disappearance to spend more time with his money, the snap election called for utterly cynical reasons – and now we have a Prime Minister who, after an epic humiliation, can stand in Downing Street and patronise the country with words more appropriate to someone who has won a landslide victory rather than a severe bruising.

The incredibly important negotiations with the EU are left in the hands of a discredited handful of Tories. I have no doubt that they will use this situation to put off an election, and will try and hang on with the support of the far-right DUP for as long as they possibly can. I sincerely hope that the other parties will not allow this to happen.

When Theresa May is forced to resign, what has-been or joke candidate will take over? Boris Johnson? Michael Gove? They must not be allowed to push more austerity upon us, more harshness towards the disabled, more environmental damage, more badger culling, more goodies for their friends the bankers and the hedge-fund managers.

I hope they are fatally weakened, and I hope they are soon out of office.

Penny Little
Great Haseley

What on earth was Theresa May thinking?

The Independent kindly published a letter of mine on 26 April, urging the citizens of the UK to vote for Jeremy Corbyn.

I gave my reasons. At the time, Corbyn was being vilified by the media and laughed at as a no-hoper. Labour was said to be 20 points behind the Conservatives.

Well. I feel a warm tingle of (altruistic) satisfaction today, revelling in solitary pleasure here in Oz, as I see what a staggering risorgimento Corbyn has achieved in six weeks.

Corbyn, guided by his integrity and extraordinary powers of reason, has invigorated the voting citizens into thinking of an alternative way in which to better the lives of all, not just the few. A new way by which we do not have to be “up” while someone else is “down”. By which we do not have to stand on someone else’s neck to get ahead.

Addressing Theresa May, a lesson for her and other leaders contemplating similar inclinations:

Do not think that when you have political capital you can gamble and squander it away. And never ever again think you can use the citizens of your country like pawns in order to accomplish your duplicitous intentions.

What on earth were you thinking, Prime Minister? Or were you thinking at all?

Rosemary Collins
NSW, Australia

Forget the 1970s – the DUP will drag us back a century or two

During the election campaign Theresa May accused Jeremy Corbyn of wanting to take us back to the 1970s and told us that if elected we would be governed by a “coalition of chaos” with a small nationalist party pulling the strings.

Reading Lucy Pasha-Robinson’s article today, it would appear that we are heading for a chaotic coalition with a small nationalist party pulling the strings, a party that is obviously living in a past century – the only question is, which century?

G Forward
​Stirling

Students shouldn’t be allowed to vote at their university residence

One anomaly that needs sorting out before we reach the next general election is the undemocratic effect of the student vote on student towns. Nick Clegg went down because of it in Sheffield Hallam and so did Julian Brazier in Canterbury, which had in its midst 40,000 students. How many of them were permanent residents?

It is excellent that so many registered to vote but they should have done so in their home towns, for the sake of the true residents of the city. In two years’ time most of them will have left. If it means that an election takes place in term time when students cannot get back to their home towns and they have to resort to postal voting, so be it.

Edward Thomas
Eastbourne

We managed to mess up the election all on our own

I find it deeply humiliating that the Russians made no attempt to interfere with our elections. Presumably they knew that we could make a complete mess of it without their assistance.

Matt Minshall
Norfolk

The country now awaits the rise of Boris

There is now only one question on the country's lips. Will Boris Johnson go for blue curtains, gold, Trump-style or multi-coloured ones with red dots and a gold fringe?

Anthony Rodriguez
​Staines-upon-Thames

We need a climate change coalition

Ian Johnston’s article was an excellent summary of the serious concerns about climate change following the UK election. The share of the political parties’ seats, at first glance, makes forming a coalition government a big headache.

But bearing in mind that the election has shown that the UK is even more equally divided, and that it is facing a seriously difficult two years negotiating separation from the EU, we urgently have to deal with the most serious issue on the planet – climate change. Isn’t it obvious that this election result shows very clearly that we need a coalition government that includes the two main political parties and not just one?

Michael Leighton
Axminster

Let this be the end of Brexit

Does the election result not indicate that we are losing our appetite for Brexit (hard, medium or soft) now that the economic and social catastrophe it will cause is beginning to dawn?

Let us apologise to our neighbours for our noisiness over the past year and ask them to let us continue membership of what is probably the most profound example of international co-operation in history.

Robert Littlestone
Address supplied

This election has shown that democracy does exist in this country

Those who complained that the election was unnecessary are now celebrating. Those who expected to benefit are struggling to keep a stiff upper lip.

Democracy works.

Dr John Doherty
Stratford-upon-Avon

The hypocrisy is palpable

The hypocrisy of this Government. With Ms May having now struck a deal with the DUP to become PM, imagine the fuss and uproar from the Conservatives if Corbyn had formed a coalition with Sinn Fein to become PM.

P Cresswell
Enniskillen