The Labour party’s national executive committee has failed the challenge and retreated back into its dugout (Anger as Corbyn faces down calls for Labour to back new Brexit vote, 1 May). How ironic that you should publish this news on International Workers’ Day. We have a Europe increasingly threatened by populist and nationalist parties raising age-old prejudices that we thought were long since buried and which cry out for all progressive forces to unite to demonstrate what a different, outward-looking Europe can achieve, but the Labour party sits on the sidelines instead of joining the fray. How sad that the old radical comrades have become a bunch of reactionaries.
All those who see the British vehicle inexorably approaching the cliff edge now have to rely on individual Labour MPs who know what is at stake to have the courage to vote according to their consciences and their awareness of the dangers. To their great credit there are a number of them that have already stood out and been prepared to face their constituents with the evidence of potential Brexit disasters. They cannot keep parroting the mantra of “respecting the referendum result” – after all, the manipulators of the referendum did not respect them.
Michael Meadowcroft
Leeds
• I think I may be a more committed remainer than Jeremy Corbyn, but still believe he is right to resist the intense pressure on him to support a second referendum or people’s vote. Ours is a parliamentary democracy, and the risks involved in setting up an alternative to the authority of parliament via an ill-thought-out referendum should now be clear enough to rule out a rerun. Actually, a rerun would be deeply divisive and should not take place for that reason alone. It is also unclear how a referendum could take place with a proposed deal and remain being the alternatives.
Clearly there are other viable alternatives: a softer deal, a harder deal and no deal. There has been talk of some form of alternative vote with a number of options on the ballot paper. This might well end up with an outcome, after transfer of votes, that had the committed support of a small minority of those voting, let alone of the total electorate. A second vote might resolve matters, but more likely will not. A general election is what is required.
John Davies
Caerphilly
• Jeremy Corbyn is right. Tom Watson still hasn’t explained what he does when his people’s vote splits three ways – one-third for each of the options on the ballot paper and one-third, egged on by the hard-Brexit cheerleaders, made up of spoiled ballots with the words “no deal” written in. That mess will make the present one look like child’s play.
Joe Ogden
London
• “Labour is the only party which represents both people who supported leave and remain,” a Labour spokeswoman claims. Can I politely inform her that the party, which I have supported for most of my life, does not represent me. There are two issues facing the country. One is the climate emergency and the other is Brexit. One is absolutely critical to our future and the other is an irrelevance which will bring no benefit to anyone. That Labour still thinks that spending any time or energy on its “alternative plan” for Brexit is in any way worthwhile demonstrates what an irrelevance the party has become.
Michael Woodgate
Bristol
• So many political science dissertations are waiting to be written that can reach only one conclusion. The tragedy of Brexit was that the two main parties should simultaneously be led by puny politicians who put survival – of themselves and their parties – and narrow, blinkered ideology above the long-term good of the country and the changing mood of the people. And that they were too arrogant to consider that the people might question the lies they were fed and have a right to be involved in the final outcome.
Anne Cowper
Swansea
• Labour may be sticking to their leisurely agenda before agreeing to promote a people’s vote as a last resort, but do they not realise that we leave the EU on 31 October and a second referendum will take several months to organise? It is no use holding the second referendum after we have left.
Maggie Watson
Eltham, London
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