Vernon Bogdanor’s suggestion of a two-stage referendum (Brexit broke parliament. Now, only the people can fix it, 24 July) would repeat the errors of 2016 and once again rig the result in favour of leaving the EU. The proposed first vote would, as before, combine all the different and mutually incompatible leave options and count their votes together, along with protest votes, creating a false apparent majority. All the leave promoters (“deal” or “no-deal”) would campaign together for an undefined negative proposition, doubtless outspending the single remain campaign again.
The only honest way to consult the people is for the few (probably three) real, specific and genuinely available options to be on the ballot, on an equal basis, with voters giving transferable numbered preferences. If we had done this last time, remain would have been clearly seen as the real option with the greatest support. As ever, a little thought shows that a referendum result is largely determined by who writes the question.
Also, if we are to vote again, next time we should all have a vote – not the artificially limited electorate of 2016, which denied the franchise to millions of British citizens who are currently using their freedom of movement in the EU27, and whose rights are on the line in any kind of Brexit.
Martin Lyster
Oxford
• The obvious alternative to the further Brexit referendum advocated by Vernon Bogdanor is a free vote in the House of Commons. As Bogdanor concedes, the 2016 referendum created a dilemma for parliament. There is no reason to think a second one wouldn’t do so again. The problem with the recent Commons votes is arguably the distorted outcomes resulting from whipping (compare the much saner outcomes in the relatively whip-free Lords). Brexit is far too big an issue for narrow party politics, as Theresa May’s tergiversations have shown. A free vote on the final Brexit plan, in which our elected representatives made up their own minds in the light of all the information before them, would be the best way to sustain our parliamentary democracy on the biggest issue to confront our country since the second world war. The parties should commit to that forthwith.
Robin Wendt
Chester
• Vernon Bogdanor offers a most lucid analysis of the parliamentary paralysis created by the EU referendum. He then argues that it can only be unlocked by a second referendum. That solution is, however, negated by his own logic, as it would require the same log-jammed parliament to pass the legislation to enable it. So long as the two main parties continue see the issues through the prism of their own agendas (party unity for the Tories, an early election for Labour), such legislation is highly unlikely to materialise before March 2019, if ever.
Peter Ibbotson
Crowmarsh, Oxfordshire
• Vernon Bogdanor says “it is hardly possible … to confine an election to a single topic”. However, in 1910 the January election was in effect a referendum on Lloyd George’s People’s Budget, and the December election a referendum what became the Parliament Act. In these cases a people’s vote led to a great progressive advance of our democracy. So it could do again by blocking the humiliating catastrophe of Brexit.
Kenneth O Morgan
Long Hanborough, Oxfordshire
• I guess Vernon Bogdanor thinks it’s witty to accuse the people of creating the current Brexit “dilemma”. And I guess it suits the thesis of his upcoming book.
As he tacitly admits near the end of his piece, however debatable the validity of the enterprise, only politicians can call a referendum, on terms they decide.
What Polly Toynbee calls the Brexit crisis (This shambolic government has set a new low standard, 24 July) has been caused by politicians, most of them Tories. Labour politicians, though, should have been, and should be, much more judicious in their approach to referendums.
The UK constitution is too important to be left for politicians to dally with. Bogdanor’s piece confirms that it shouldn’t be left to historians either.
Jan Dubé
Peebles, Scottish Borders
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