Sir, – It was kind of the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier to wish us Brits "good luck" if we do not agree a special trade deal with the EU (Naomi O'Leary, "Mood darkens as EU and Britain face sprint to reach last-chance deal", September 2nd).
Perhaps there was nobody in his Irish audience who realised that they would need “good luck” more than us.
That is according to the Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, which found last year that Ireland would be the country hardest hit by a “no deal” Brexit, and much harder hit than the UK. By the projections of this well-respected research body, if the UK simply defaulted to World Trade Organisation terms, the UK would suffer a loss of economic growth equivalent to less than 3 per cent of our GDP, while for the Republic it would be more than 8 per cent.
And while measures to mitigate the erosion of British economic prospects could cut that to a trivial half of a percent, similar action for Ireland would still leave it 5 per cent down.
To curry favour with Brussels, Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney led the Republic up the EU garden path, and this is where it will now most likely end. – Yours, etc,
DR COOPER,
Maidenhead,
Berkshire,
UK.