Sir, – As long predicted, the Brexiteer scapegoating has started in earnest.
Jeffrey Donaldson's position is typical – any negative Brexit fallout will be someone else's fault. In Mr Donaldson's case, naturally, it will be Dublin's fault ("Irish Government 'driving us all' to a no-deal Brexit, –says Donaldson", News, June 13th).
On the same day as Mr Donaldson’s speech, I read an interview with David Gauke, the UK justice secretary.
A moderate Remainer, he pithily summed up that Brexiteer mentality: “I fear that we would be in an environment where we drive the car into the wall but it will be the wall’s fault.” – Yours, etc,
SEÁN MacCANN,
Trillick,
Co Tyrone.
Sir, – Now that the British Conservative Party’s Game of Thrones is up and running, we can expect a summer of self-delusion and disingenuousness, culminating in the surviving man in a suit wiping the blood from his dagger and calling for party unity.
He will then head confidently for Brussels, seeking to negotiate a better deal.
He will be told that he missed the negotiations on the Withdrawal Agreement by several months.
Apparently when the EU concluded the agreement with Theresa May she was prime minister negotiating on behalf of the UK and not just representing herself. Who knew?
He will, however, be directed helpfully to the political declaration, which can be altered. And so he will find himself in exactly the same position as Theresa May, albeit with the advantage of not being her.
So where next? Does he carry through with a crash-out Brexit as many of his party want, or does he, in his turn, big-up changes to the political declaration in the hope of selling it to Westminster?
There is of course another option and that is to pose the question: “Are we really going to risk Brexit in order to pretend – and it’s only a backstop anyway – that Northern Ireland is the same as the rest of the UK?” – Yours, etc,
KEVIN O’SULLIVAN,
Phibsborough,
Dublin 7.