As you report (Beckett warns of Farage win if Labour hedges its bets, 18 April), the latest YouGov poll gives the hardline leave parties (Brexit and Ukip) 34%. The remain parties (Lib Dem, Green, Change UK, SNP/Plaid) have 29%, while sit-on-the-fence Labour has 22%. On these numbers, the anti-Brexit parties in England and Wales will find it hard to win more than half a dozen seats between them, and the media will report a massive Brexit triumph.
It appears to be too late to get a joint name on the ballot paper, even just a combination of three registered names, which seems ridiculous. But desperate times require desperate measures.
I suggest that the three plainly anti-Brexit parties divide up the English regions between themselves and just one party stands in each – with full public and campaigning support from the others. Of course, the Labour party may finally come to its senses, but the rest of us should do what is required in the real world.
Tony Greaves
Liberal Democrats, House of Lords
• Margaret Beckett urges Labour to back remain to prevent Nigel Farage’s Brexit party from triumphing at the European elections. Her call is understandable, but it only triangulates one section of a complex moral and political dilemma. Any failed, partial or zero Brexit will bring the Brexit party to power in some way, but the real threat is a massive upset to the British political applecart at the first general election after some version of a failed Brexit. That the far right could hold power in cabinet has been obvious for months, but this possibility is now a fair deduction from the YouGov polling.
The alternative to Beckett’s suggestion is for remainers to support Brexit to keep the far right from power, which could be a disastrous smash and grab of our liberal democracy and take years to recover from. The hope, in such a scenario, would be that support for the Rejoin EU party would grow in line with popular frustration at not belonging to the EU. The scenario could be less traumatic than the virtual civil war that could ensue if Brexit is overturned or fudged in some way. I prefer Beckett’s suggestion, but I fear its likely consequence.
Nigel Pollitt
London
• As your editorial (Britain’s parties must get together if they want to help Europe stay together, 19 April) persuasively argued, it is high time for Labour to take a bolder stance on Brexit. But, depressingly, you also reported on the efforts of a number of Labour MPs to perpetuate the party’s equivocation through drumming up opposition to a second referendum (Report, 19 April).
How disastrous for the party electorally, but much more importantly for the UK’s survival prospects. Surely, it is evident by now that Brexit in virtually any form (and certainly any Brexit that would satisfy the ERG) risks the disintegration of the country. In the short term, the efforts of Stephen Kinnock et al seem likely to undermine the already slim prospect that the talks between the government and Labour will lead anywhere. In the slightly longer term, they make more likely the disaster of a no-deal Brexit or its practical equivalent, a deal quickly dishonoured by whoever Conservative activists choose as the UK’s next prime minister.
It should not be the business of any Labour MP, however his or her constituents voted in 2016, to facilitate such an outcome.
Emeritus Professor Adrian Guelke
Belfast
• Your editorial on 19 April made me think. I wonder if the national executive committees of the mainly pro-European parties could discuss the concept of a “stay coalition” for the MEP elections in May?
Of course, inter-party discussions would have to consider the relative size of each party’s membership, so that proportionately more MEP candidates would be chosen from the larger parties and relatively fewer candidates from the smaller parties, but with that borne in mind, the coalition could select those candidates from any of the parties who have the best chances of winning particular MEP constituencies.
This sort of coalition would provide a unified front to challenge the far-right parties. Moderate Tories and Labour party voters wanting to stay in the EU would have something realistic to vote for, as would the Greens, Lib Dems and nationalist parties. In mainly leave areas, perhaps the Labour party could persuade the coalition that a leave-friendly Labour candidate might be able to take on, say, someone from the Brexit or Ukip parties. What would there be to lose?
Dick Bateman
Saltford, Somerset
• Nobody has captured the ironic essence of the Brexit shenanigans more succinctly or with greater wit than Marina Hyde, but I disagree with her latest article (Only remainers could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, 20 April).
The EU elections, if the UK has to participate in them, is not a scramble for who ends up with the most remain MEPs. It is the equivalent of the second referendum that so many crave. Consider this: every general election is fought by at least four main parties. Nobody quibbles. Nobody tries to do deals. And the result is declared on the first-past-the-post system, so only one candidate ever wins.
The EU elections are predicated upon a different system, in which smaller parties stand a chance of having a candidate selected in succeeding rounds. In that way, the result is fairer. But even this is not important. When/if these EU elections happen, it will be the amount of votes cast that needs to be considered. We recently had a huge 1 million-plus People’s Vote march, consisting of individuals from all political groups and none. At the same time, Farage’s re-creation of the Jarrow Crusade failed utterly to pull in more than a few hundred marchers. What was important? The numbers. So it is now. We are constantly having the figure of 17.4 million leave voters thrown at us as a justification for quitting the EU. We need to throw back a higher voter figure as the reason to remain.
Carol Hedges
Harpenden, Hertfordshire
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