WITH the EU and its negotiators taking the intransigent stance of Charles de Gaulle’s “non, non, non” to any sensible British proposals, in their selfish forlorn hope that dragging out these talks for years will stop us leaving the EU, I feel we must change tack.

Businesses say they want certainty as to the future, so we must tell the EU that come March 2019 we leave and adopt World Trade Organisation rules from that date, giving 18 months notice to business to prepare for this.

This would give the EU notice that we will trade on WTO terms with them, and it will be up to them to come to us with other proposals if they so wish.

We will honour our EU budget commitments until 2020.

We will negotiate trade deals around the world from now on, and these will come into force in April 2019.

When the major players in the EU realise that their exports to us will be affected, just watch them come cap in hand seeking trade terms like we have now.

Depending how much they are willing to pay us to adopt these terms, we might just accept their offer, dependent on what is best for Britain.

Geoff Robb, Dunnington, York