Irish prime minister Micheál Martin calls for a “joint, pragmatic solution” over the Northern Ireland protocol (FT View, May 20), but in July last year Jonathan Faull, a former director-general at the EU Commission, offered just such a collaborative solution — where the UK and the EU would each retain their own customs rules and regulations but would make it an offence, subject to stiff penalties under their own laws, to break the other’s trade standards. Brussels dismissed it out of hand (Opinion, July 21).

Denis Cooper
Maidenhead, Berkshire, UK