IN response to your reader (J Sutherland, Hear All Sides, April 19). It is very clear that the EU do not want Brexit to succeed.

Unfortunately there are influential people in the UK helping the EU to keep us in and making leaving difficult.

I believe if we are to be completely independent and outside EU control, it will become more cooperative, otherwise it will be bad for the remaining 27 countries.

It is unacceptable that three years since we voted to leave, the EU refuses to negotiate on our trading relationship.

The only reason is they’re trying to wear us down is so that we stay in.

I have long thought we should leave the EU because it is far from a success story adding nothing but cost and bureaucracy.

Its aim is to reduce national sovereignty and have one European super-state with one currency, one army and one parliament.

This is something that is unlikely to succeed and will involve unnecessary extra cost and upheaval.

We need an economy that performs well for the UK.

We should trade where it is to the mutual benefit of us and our trading partners, whether these are in Europe or any other part of the world.

John Elliott, chairman, Ebac, Bishop Auckland