Tony Blair’s intervention in the Brexit debate deserved more of a welcome than it received (Blair: let’s organise against Brexit, 29 October). Why is the accepted non-wisdom that it’s somehow undemocratic to suggest that the British people might want to think again once the terms of leaving Europe are known? And why is it up to Blair in default of our active politicians to state the obvious?
Brexit means Brexit means a leap in the dark. Are we to come out of the EU regardless of what terms are offered?
In a referendum in February 2014 the Swiss voted to restrict the number of EU and Efta workers entering their country. Now that it’s clear that this move could result in the EU cancelling its large number of bilateral agreements with Switzerland allowing access to the single market, the Swiss government has just announced that it will put the choice back to its citizens in a second referendum on whether or not to proceed.
There are, of course, other precedents: in a 1992 referendum, the Danes rejected the Maastricht treaty. A year later, when more was known, they reversed their decision.
The vote on 23 June was surely close enough to suggest that changed circumstances surrounding the most important decision facing the country in our lifetimes might justify second thoughts. After all, as William Keegan pointed out in his Observer column (30 October), a British Election Study panel found that 6% of those who voted to leave the EU now regret their decision as against 1% of remainers.
John Aeberhard
Steeple Ashton, Wiltshire
• I am no supporter of the Tories but the condemnation of the prime minister that you publicised on the front page (May under fire for secret talk on Brexit fears, 27 October) totally confuses me. Here we have a politician with strong views of her own on Brexit who nevertheless puts her personal opinion aside to follow the will of the country. Not many politicians would be prepared for such criticism for doing what the electorate wanted. Boris Johnson and his eye on a top job does not count.
John Loader
West Witton, North Yorkshire
• I take issue with those so affronted by the PM’s Brexit volte-face. It signifies nothing more than her being a keen fan of HL Mencken’s famous dictum that democracy is “the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard”. As the contents of her Goldman Sachs speech reveal, we’re surely on course for the “hard” bit. As for “good”? Well, only time will tell.
Colin Montgomery
Edinburgh
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