Martyn Sadler

In any negotiation the rewards tend to go to the party that grasps the initiative and lays down the terms of the negotiation. The UK government should, on the day following the referendum result, have announced that we would be leaving single market, the customs union and all the EU institutions, but that we would be prepared to discuss with our EU partners whether and how the effects of our departure could be ameliorated so as not to cause them maximum damage. The government should also have announced that it was not prepared to restore a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, but that the EU, if it insisted on having one, would have to be responsible for creating it.

If it's true I would call it foolishness as much as vanity.

That would be rather more convincing if you didn't insist on labelling everyone who disagrees with you as a racist. It seems to be the standard insult from the Democratic Party, which is ironic, given its own history of racism.

Trump pulled off probably the most amazing political achievement in my lifetime, and yet some people still insist he's a complete idiot. It's amazing how self-deluding some people can be.

If a political party wants to put in its election manifesto that it will hold a referendum that could reverse the previous referendum result, then that would be a way of giving people the chance to have a further say. By then, I imagine, it would be a case of applying to join the EU from outside the organisation.

Good luck! I'll watch out for the result. I hope this is the first step to the people of Hastings realising that what they need most is a Super League club.

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Does that mean that you've finally decided to stand for election?

The question couldn't have been clearer. But it's certainly possible to argue that some people may not have fully understood all the ramifications of what leaving the EU meant. But the debate prior to the referendum was wide ranging and, at the end of the day, if people have a vote you have to accept their verdict. However, I think the government has made a terrible mess of the negotiation process since the referendum.

Comey came across as quite a creepy guy in his interview with George Stephanopoulos. He appeared to combine personal vanity with indecisiveness, which was surprising for someone who had headed the FBI. I'm surprised that Trump tolerated him for as long as he did.

"Standing up for the rights of minorities" is what you might call the formulation of policies along racial lines. The reality is that it involves pitting different ethnic groups against each other and giving privileges to some, but not to others. Could anyone honestly believe that that could happen without provoking a reaction?

I suppose it was Abraham Lincoln who originally paved the way. He was another pesky Republican.

Actually the Democratic establishment wanted Hillary Clinton to get the nomination in 2008. But Obama was a brilliant politician who understood that the time was right for a black president, after the first black Secretary of State (Colin Powell) and the first black female Secretary of State (Condi Rice) had both been appointed by Republican Presidents.

I'm sure Corbyn isn't anti-Semitic himself. But the question is whether he's prepared to tolerate a degree of anti-Semitism if he thinks it will give him some political advantage. I would hope that the answer would be that he wouldn't, although so far his response hasn't been entirely convincing.

Of course I accept that the Democratic Party was a broad church in the 1960s, but many of its members in Congress were overtly racist, which you appear to admit and it had institutionally racist policies in many states before the changes that began under LBJ and that took some time to work through. If that were the case with any other political party, you would denounce the party as a whole as racist, as you've done with the Republican Party when, for all its faults, which I wouldn't deny, clearly it wasn't institutionally racist. Racism in the USA has been and continues to be a problem for all political parties, but you seem to be in an ideological straitjacket that requires you to find no fault with the Democrats and their racial identity politics, and nothing but faults with the Republicans. I'm not surprised that your mind is boggling.