I DOUBT that D Skinner is going to be disappointed (Letters July 6, ‘Brexit adages’), as Mrs May appears to have done to the people of Britain, what an earlier inept Tory PM did to the people of Czechoslovakia, in seeking to procure an agreement at any price.

Although Chamberlain’s ‘sell-out’, effected 80-yearsago (almost to the month) endured for a vital, valuable 10 months, Mrs May’s is unlikely to endure for 18 days.

Mrs May, having fallen into every trap laid for he by EU negotiators, made all the concessions to them, without getting a single thing in return, negotiated in ever decreasing circles for months, and now, with her ‘agreement’, tells us that the UK is back where it started (and) still in the EU.

Is it always a facet of Tory negotiating ’skills’ to treat the phrases ‘negotiated settlement’ and ‘negotiated sellout’ as routinely interchangeable?

Without broaching the subject if whether Mrs May’s qualities as prime minister and party leader are actually ‘up to it’, one could refer back to and paraphrase the words of a competent Conservative leader of 80-years-ago: “The battle of Europe has just been lost — the battle for Britain is just about to begin.”

Paddy Keenan, Ward Close, Andover.