THE Remainers are being quite duplicitous in their constant sniping over the Brexit negotiations. Every little difficulty is magnified as a reason to call the whole thing off. Yet, on the biggest issue of all – whether (and how much) the UK should pay ransom money to leave the EU – they say nothing. They are terrified of the reaction of the voters if they do. The most unprincipled Remainers are the SNP and their leader. For them Brexit is nothing more than a means of propelling fear and grievance, no matter what the end result. Facts, figures and the interests of the people do not enter the SNP calculus.

So perhaps this Brexiter might offer some background facts. When joining the EEC in 1973, the UK paid an entrance fee. Secondly, in every year since then, the UK has paid in more tax revenue to the EU budget than has been spent here on EU programmes (that is, 44 successive years of subsidy by the UK to the rest of the EU). Much of this relates to how the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is set up. All tariff revenues on agricultural products imported (and cars and so on too) to the UK from outside the EU go to Brussels: a stipulated amount (20 per cent) is retained by each member state to cover administration and tariff collection costs.

As the biggest EU food importer, the UK has to pay, for example, an average tariff of 40 per cent on imports of dairy products, and up to 100 per cent on pig meat (and the consequent higher European prices in the shops). Why? To subsidise European producers. Since agriculture represents only about one per cent of UK Gross Domestic Product, few of those producers are British.

Thirdly, Mrs Thatcher negotiated an annual EU budget rebate in the 1980s, much of which the naive Tony Blair gave up in return for future structural and budget reform of the CAP. Under French pressure, the latter did not happen.

Fourthly, two or three years ago, the EU demanded and got €2 billion in extra UK payment on account of our superior rate of economic growth (arising from not having to bear the deadweight of the euro).

Notwithstanding the above, and without accounting explanation, the EU now has the brass neck to demand €100 billion to cover their budget commitments to 2020 (largely the CAP again). We are expected to pay so that remaining members are indemnified for the funding gap contingent on our departure. Of course we should cover the pension liabilities of British employees of the European institutions. And there would be little objection to funding joint research and education programmes like Erasmus, as several non-EU members currently do. Maybe our share of funding of infrastructure projects to help Eastern Europe get over 40 years of useless socialism, could continue. But, as for the rest of the €100 billion, "they can go whistle", as Boris Johnson put it a week or two back. We have already paid out more than enough.

Richard Mowbray,

14 Ancaster Drive,

Glasgow.

AS the Brexit talks stall, and David Davis resorts to name calling ("Barnier is minister for ‘silly’ talks says Brexit Secretary after Brussels spat", The Herald, September 4), Liam Fox raises charges of “blackmail” and the PM hits upon cut-and-paste future trade deals to mirror current EU trade deals in order to assuage the Japanese who see the UK as a back road into the EU, one must ponder, what next?

Michel Barnier insists that the EU will not unpick its four freedoms in order to kowtow to No10’s sense of entitlement. After 40 years of rebates, opt-outs and Anglo-awkwardness, he stresses Brexit means Brexit.

The constructive ambiguity has been found out. The half-baked one liners from Mr Davis over border controls which are not border controls, but will be monitored electronically so that custom dues can be paid, have been dubbed “fantasy” by the EU and retracted by the Government side.

Some of the media are hinting that Theresa May is about to make an “intervention” . No details, but one could speculate: beg for extensions of the time scale? Change the team? Sack Mr Davis and Dr Fox? Put either Philip Hammond or even her charismatic strong and stable self in charge? Or will she simply do an about turn and resign?

It is clear that the UK side is out of its depth. Its overall awareness of the nature of the exit process, let alone the specifics of a bespoke Brexit process, is beyond its capacity. Looking back, any real work in international trade relations and negotiation has been led by the EU.

There can be no more life-lines thrown any longer to the UK from the EU. It has to face the consequences of the misinformation put out during the referendum by sections.

Scots voted to remain. Perhaps we should watch with a degree of schadenfreude as the pretention and pompousness of the faux Brenglish state is finally punctured.

John Edgar,

4 Merrygreen Place,

Stewarton.

THE trends certainly suggest that things will get worse before they get better, as Jeremy Peat despairs (“Sorry to say, things will get better before they get better”, Herald Business, September 4).

The new President of France is being feted for promising to provide the way ahead for the European Union. As a model for others, he is attempting to increase the competitiveness of his nation in the global economy by reducing wages. He intends to do this partly by removing some powers of trade unions and deregulating. Moreover France is said already to have one of the lowest rates of union membership among the industrialised countries at 7.7 per cent. The OECD average is 16.7 per cent. The UK's unionisation in 2014 was 25.1 per cent.

The day of reckoning has arrived for the UK. Not every country has enjoyed the inheritance of wealth through an empire and North Sea oil. Didn't the Government once tell us that the oil find had prevented us becoming “a third world nation”?

The European Union, if the willpower is there, has the potential to provide a life-line for the developed world. But unfortunately the willpower is missing, and anyway we're being thrown out and penalised tens of billions of euros as a result.

Ian Jenkins,

7 Spruce Avenue,

Hamilton.