From Janet Beckett, Ryde:

The letters of Iain McKie and Tim Bristow (CP, 23-11-18) present contrasting but equally flawed assessments of how the mess that is Brexit can be redeemed.

Tim Bristow proposes we sign up to the Withdrawal Agreement with the EU because when we leave in March we can simply “tear up” any sections (Backstop and Customs Union etc) that we don’t like, with few consequences.

Unlikely as this is, it suggests a vision of a newly sovereign Britain that doesn’t negotiate in good faith and casually repudiates or avoids international agreements. Not the ideal reputation we’d wish for when seeking new trading partners.

Iain McKie still insists, despite the evidence of two years of fraught negotiations, we can still simply walk away from the EU of our own free will.

The impossibility of this idea was very clear before the referendum and the best, if bumbling, efforts of Davis, Johnson, Fox and Gove have done nothing to revise this view.

Even if it was the will of the people, it is simply not possible to walk away from such an extraordinarily complex agreement.

Absurdly, Iain McKie sees the villains as MPs who will support Mrs May’s admittedly inadequate proposal, when it should be the loudest voices for Brexit who must be held to account for their many exaggerated and often dishonest claims, and for slinking off to the margins when it became clear they could not be delivered.