The Home Office’s visa technology is useless – so why do we think the department can fix the Irish border problem?

The Brexiteers frequently tell us we are about to become “Global Britain”. They also tell us that technology will solve the Irish border problem.

A friend from Singapore who lives in the UK is currently applying for indefinite leave to remain. He can’t track the progress of his case with the Home Office online. When he wrote to his MP he was told that the Home Office can take up to 20 days to reply to a letter from an MP.

If we can’t even use technology that does exist to enable simple visa applications, how can we have faith in politicians who claim that yet to be invented technology can fix the Irish border problem?

Chris Key
Address supplied

Alastair Campbell has an almighty nerve. Having been one of the nastiest operators in the Blair administration, he now turns his petulance and venom on Jeremy Corbyn in the most damaging way he can contrive, aided and abetted by his mates in the media.

In all the attacks on Mr Corbyn, from all quarters, we hear a mountain of horrible allegations and yet a complete lack of evidence. This should therefore be interpreted as individuals venting their own personal spleen and their own personal agenda, and it is not an edifying spectacle. I will not be bludgeoned by these people into following their dictated way of regarding Mr Corbyn. Some will follow the herd, but I hope and trust many will not.

It was refreshing to see Jeremy Corbyn himself refusing to engage in personal attacks when he was invited to do so in an interview at the weekend. “I don’t do personal abuse,” he said. If his vitriolic critics had an ounce of decency, they would feel ashamed of themselves and their tantrums. Some hope!

Penny Little
Great Haseley

Thank you Duncan Fisher for countering England’s smugness about its self-styled national superiority and for rightly pointing out that the northern and western fringe nations of the UK can be fully justified in debating their future, whether this be outwith or within the UK. However, there will be many in “left-behind” northern England who also question their allegiance to a government which rarely recognises that its current borders encompass many more people than live in the home counties.

Ian Reid
Kilnwick

What could be a truly Churchillian act of statesmanship on the part of the prime minister would be to announce that the last three years have proved, beyond any doubt, that the country needs root and branch reform in every sphere, and that clearly the best way to embark upon that is to start by acknowledging that we already have a good deal with the EU; and that clinging to the dreamy distortions, lies and cross-fingered wishfulness of the Brexit fantasy is facile madness.

If Boris Johnson really wants to see “some plaster come off the ceiling”, maybe he could muster the courage to stand tall and tell us the truth about the Faragist fever-dream. It would be an extraordinary volte-face, but one which would undoubtedly guarantee him his place in history, and at last allow some serious thinking about our relationship with the rest of the world, and with each other.

Gerron Stewart
Edinburgh

Exhausted by the destruction caused by the First World War, European leaders were so weak as to allow the rapid rise of fascism, which led swiftly to the Second World War. The world is in a fragile state, for which strong leadership is the only factor which could prevent a recurrence; and such direction is by mature understanding of socioeconomics and security; not posturing, aggressive, populism.

Liberal democracies thrive if backed up with firm governance, but when liberalism devolves into weakness a political vacuum appears. Such a void is easily filled with extremism which, loosely masked by populist self-determination, is the root cause of Brexit.

Steve Bannon’s delight at Britain’s rapidly accelerating collapse into economic ruin, which will have a significant impact on European strength, should be a clear message that extreme political incompetence in the United Kingdom has enabled European entry into the era of pre-fascism.

Matt Minshall​
Norfolk

In my lifetime the press made Princess Margaret the royal we love to hate. The mantle passed in turn to Princess Anne, Fergie, and Camilla; now Meghan has inherited the unlooked-for title. She never stood a chance. It seems there always has to be one and she is it. Yet another reason to be a republican.

Joanna Pallister
Durham