ONCE again a complex round of negotiations over several months between the United Kingdom and the European Union has been settled in the “wee small hours” of the final morning by the intervention of the top brass, and the offer of compromises and last minute amendments to the wording of key passages, some of which could probably have been discussed and agreed much earlier.

The significant difference this time is the last-minute direct involvement of a minor party from the smallest of the four devolved administrations in the UK.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is not even the majority party in Stormont but it has intervened in the negotiations and in effect told Theresa May what she must agree and not agree to, including arrogantly interrupting her in the middle of her negotiations with the EU earlier this week.

So why is the Prime Minister putting up with such humiliation? Of course, it is nothing to do with parliamentary democracy or taking into account the rights of smaller nations. It is simply to guarantee just 10 extra votes in the House of Commons, just to keep the Conservative Party in power with a small working majority for a few more years. Disgracefully, this support was bought with £1 billion of public money, provided by British taxpayers. The actual ruling parties in Scotland and Wales will not, of course, be allowed any direct involvement in or influence over these negotiations.

Surely the British people must be promised a decisive second referendum at the end of the negotiation process, when we know what we are voting for and what the long-term effects would be on the national economy and the future living standards of millions of ordinary citizens and their families.

Iain AD Mann,

7 Kelvin Court, Glasgow.

REGULATORY alignment, harmonisation, soft or hard borders and the inner Irish crossing points or border have been foremost. How to avoid a hard border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland and Brexit is per se unrealisable.

Despite new word formulas and insertions of critical adjectives, leaving the single market and customs union means a border as the four freedoms no longer apply. No amount of fiddling with semantics can move that fact.

As phase two of a new deal starts, once hard agreements on aligning whatever one aims for in terms of interchange of goods, it will encompass standards, limitations, and certain non-aligned goods and products will fall outwith; and that is before one even focuses on people passing across borders.

So the avoidance of a hard border is a chimera. That can only exist as it does at present for the existing 28. Once the UK leaves the single market and customs union, as both Theresa May and Jeremy Corby have stated, the present border changes.

The Irish issue is a genuine attempt to square the circle post Brexit. The trouble is that, post Brexit, it is no longer a “circle”; it is an “eclipse” and that cannot be squared.

Northern Irish citizens can keep their EU citizenship. Does that apply to Scots who also voted for Remain? Northern Ireland is now distinct in this respect from the UK, which goes against the DUP’s red line. Deep down, all sides see that and the May premiership will collapse from within irrespective of how the 27 will react to the next phase, meaning firm detailed proposals from the supplicant UK to the EU and the 27, judge, jury and final arbiter.

The only veto the UK will have is to walk away.The points are set for a post Brexit reality check in that any new relationship will be harder on the UK and its citizens.

As Michel Barnier stated:“Brexit means Brexit everywhere.” That will become a hard reality everywhere in the UK, or what is left of it.

John Edgar,

4 Merrygreen Place, Stewarton.

I SUPPOSE if I was Nicola Sturgeon, secure (in the absence of any credible successor) in my job as leader despite losing 500,000 votes in June, I too would focus on undermining the UK’s Brexit position. UK failure, perceived or real, to secure a good deal for Scotland is her only hope of a second referendum.

Just hours after Friday’s announcement she tweeted “any special arrangements for NI must be available to other UK nations ... a UK government that is able to say that come what may, it will avoid hard borders with Ireland/NI after Brexit can never again tell Scotland that independence would mean a hard border between Scotland and rUK”.

She avoided the other precedent, the UK’s £50 billion “divorce bill”, tiny (£800 per inhabitant) compared with an independent Scotland’s inherited £150bn share of the UK’s £1,600bn national debt (£2,800). An Irish resolution still depends on satisfactory trade agreements but anyone genuinely interested in the best result for the UK should tweet their delight that discussions are moving to trade.

Ms Sturgeon’s problem is EU negotiations are grinding inexorably forward to a deal that even she will be unable to spin well enough to convince enough Scots that she should have a dog’s chance, last-throw-of-the-dice for a referendum.

Allan Sutherland,

1 Willow Row, Stonehaven.

SO this premier is error-strewn, says Ian W Thomson (Letters, December 8); methinks not. Rather, she has shown energy, persistence and drive in reaching her goal this week. More power to Theresa May’s elbow, as she enters the next phase of Brexit negotiations.

Brian D Henderson,

44 Dundrennan Road,

Battlefield, Glasgow.

IS it a muddle, a fuddle, a guddle; perhaps some word to describe it is still to be invented? We are out but still we will be in.

We are not in the single market or customs union but aligned in all directions: north-south and east-west. How that will work is the £40 billion question. And how will it affect Scotland? Who knows.

GR Weir,

17 Mill Street, Ochiltree.

THELMA Edwards neatly makes her views on Brexit clear with refreshing recourse to the Doric poetry of Charles Murray ( Letters, December 8 ).

For my part, when tiring of the argument, duplicity and confusion attending Brexit I think Shakespeare had it right with “a plague o’ both your houses” ( Romeo and Juliet ) and, for those who put us into this unnecessary mess, the more robust “a pox upon him.” ( All’s Well That Ends Well.)

R Russell Smith,

96 Milton Road, Kilbirnie.