I was having a pleasant Sunday, until I checked the Guardian online and learned there may be no meaningful vote on Brexit until 12 March (I will still be PM beyond Brexit, insists May as fury grows over delayed vote, 25 February). I am dismayed and horrified. How can such a major, literally world-changing decision not be considered until it’s nearly too late to change or reject it? There’s something terribly wrong with a democratic system whose institutions work (or in this case, don’t work) in this manner.
I’m an American who moved here just in time to live through the chaos of the Brexit “process”. I find myself increasingly astonished at how dysfunctional your system is, and how badly it operates. It seems to me the prime minister has an inordinate amount of power, able to set the course of major legislation without parliament having any ability to insist on an alternative procedure when one is desperately needed. The “Mother of all Parliaments” has devolved into an idiot child.
Rose Levinson
London
• As EU frustration with May’s handling of Brexit grows, they diplomatically refer to the UK government as focusing on “domestic political advantage” (EU chiefs discuss plans to postpone Brexit until 2021, 25 February).
The naked truth is that for the PM Brexit is only nominally about Britain. What she calls negotiations are merely a cack-handed smokescreen for the preservation of the Tory party and hence their rightwing sway over the British people. What the EU officials are striving for is in many ways a rescue operation for the beleaguered UK.
Like the clarity she never ceases to claim, her vows and pledges are meaningless, so she blithely professes to support immigration, having herself created the prevailing “hostile environment” that poisons social cohesion. She would have us believe that her reneging on her promise to quit before 2022 stemmed not from personal ambition but from her selfless desire to “get on with a domestic agenda”. This threat should send shivers down everyone’s spine.
Carolyn Kirton
Aberdeen
• The tragic performance we are watching, of a deluded absolute ruler wandering fruitlessly around Europe and the Middle East pretending to negotiate is more Webster than Shakespeare. Her madness can only lead to a no deal for there are no honourable outcomes on offer that can satisfy the intransigent European Research Group, the only group she has sought to please since the agreement she and her cabinet signed was rejected in November.
It is extraordinary to watch her defiance of parliament, seeking no viable consensus and endlessly delaying any examination of her hollow claims. It is extraordinary that only a handful of MPs have found themselves sufficiently embarrassed by their complicity to do anything at all to express dismay. Aditya Chakrabortty is of course right that “Brexit was always a project driven by the right to enrich the right” (If Labour aids this Tory plot it will be crushed by what follows, 25 February). This whole sorry episode cranked into place as soon as it seemed that the EU might crack down on money laundering and tax havens. The triumphant right will need to recruit large repressive forces when the first act of this revenge tragedy comes to an end on 29 March.
I fear for my grandchildren – for everybody’s grandchildren!
Will Taylor
Witheridge, Devon
• Why isn’t the European Research Group styled, by journalists and broadcasters, “the so-called European Research Group”? It certainly deserves to be. The generally accepted definition of research is “a systematic inquiry whose goal is knowledge”. The purpose of the so-called ERG seems to be advocacy, not research; persuasion, not knowledge.
The group may employ political researchers to find material in support of their beliefs, largely at the public expense, but that should never be confused with research. A few of the best-known examples of their unsupported assertions: “WTO rules”, “frictionless trade”, “taking back control”, “no deal is better than a bad deal”, “the Lancaster House speech represents the Will of the People”, “some of the easiest trade deals in history”, “implementation period” , and of course “British exceptionalism”.
I was wondering what might have inspired the Westminster relaunch of the group in 2016, when I discovered the name of the Russian organisation that was very active – and effective – spreading misinformation on social media in Ukraine and subsequently during the 2016 US presidential election: it called itself “The Internet Research Agency”. In both cases, the debasement of an important word is supposed to give a spurious legitimation to mis-selling, rhetoric and delusion.
Whatever the final result of the Brexit negotiations, this is likely to have a long-lasting effect on public discourse, together with other examples of post-truth. Other “research groups” will no doubt be taking note.
Professor Christopher Frayling
Bath
• What counts as “aiding Brexit”? In urging Labour to back a second referendum, Aditya Chakrabortty doesn’t tell us. As things stand, the best chance of securing a Commons majority for another public vote is the Kyle-Wilson amendment, which offers to “facilitate” the passage of Theresa May’s EU deal in return for a pledge to hold a referendum on ratification. Of course, even if this attempt to break the current parliamentary deadlock succeeds, it is always possible that voters will endorse the deal. If, on the other hand, they reject it, a general election, like spring after winter, would surely not be long behind.
David Purdy
Stirling
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