There is a shrill overtone of hypocrisy in the sound of MPs who supported a customs union or “Common Market 2.0” in Monday night’s indicative votes condemning second referendum supporters who did not vote for these options (Soft Brexiters lay blame for defeat on backers of second referendum, 2 April). You quote Stephen Kinnock, referring to the 33 referendum supporters who did not support Common Market 2.0, as saying that: “It appears that some of us were acting in good faith and in a spirit of compromise whilst others were not.”
In fact, of those MPs who supported Kinnock’s preferred option, 29 (including five Labour MPs) voted against a second referendum while a further 22 (including 14 Labour) abstained. Similarly, of those who voted for a customs union 43 (including 18 Labour) opposed a second referendum while another 27 (including 16 Labour) abstained.
So the lack of good faith and compromise appears to have been at least as much on the side of the proponents of a soft Brexit. Let us pray that by Wednesday diehards on either side of this latest divide can swallow their amour-propre, put their country’s future first and steer us to a situation where one or other (or both) of these Brexit options can be put to the people alongside an option to remain. Sanity still has a small chance to prevail.
Rob Sykes
Oxford
• The people’s vote brigade in parliament got this completely wrong. It was imperative on Monday that an alternative – any alternative – to May’s deal emerged. It’s very unlikely that May would have chosen to endorse it, but whichever way she jumped, it would have fractured the cabinet and probably brought down the government. This would have opened up all sorts of new possibilities, freeing the soft Brexiters and remainers in the Conservative ranks to support other approaches and forge new alliances. The opposition remainers have in all probability lost the war by insisting on fighting a losing battle.
Mike Shearing
Southall, London
• Polly Toynbee is right: “Only the public can end the debate, either choosing an actual Brexit deal laid before them, or coming to the conclusion that there is no deal better than the one we have” (Pay no heed to calls for a compromise Brexit: out is out, 2 April). It’s a view shared by a growing coterie of moderate Tories. On Newsnight, Huw Merriman said: “Parliament has failed, can’t deliver, so let’s be realistic and ask the people if they will put the PM’s deal through.” Significantly, a confirmatory public vote also received the highest number of positive votes, with 280, in the second set of indicative votes. A customs union may eventually achieve a Commons majority. However, David Davis warned the cabinet that if it accepts a softer Brexit, it cannot assume “every Conservative MP would vote for you if it was made a confidence vote”. Combined with a Labour party eager for a general election, this might bring down Mrs May’s government. A second referendum is rapidly emerging for all sides as the least worst option and best face-saving way out of the current debacle.
Joe McCarthy
Dublin
• Polly Toynbee’s trip to Hastings has provided her with a hook on which to hang an all-too-familiar message, but does not mention that the constituency voted 56-44 in favour of leaving the EU. It may be possible to stop Brexit, but that doesn’t mean it’s right to do so, regardless of the social and political costs. Few leave voters in Hastings will agree with her, while many remain voters (like me) think that democracy takes precedence over our own wish to stay in the EU, and that a soft Brexit is therefore greatly preferable to her uncompromising, unrealistic, and unhelpful resistance.
Jon Griffith
Hastings, East Sussex
• Dawn Foster is right: opinion on the EU is not a dichotomy but a spectrum (Newport West could vindicate Jeremy Corbyn, 2 April). There are extremes at both ends of that spectrum seeking to impose their will, including Polly Toynbee’s “no compromise” demand that the referendum result should simply be ignored. In austerity Britain, EU membership is not in itself a core issue: whether in or out, governments do not have to close care centres. The need to resume normal politics is urgent.
Peter McKenna
Liverpool
• Dawn Foster asserts that “Labour voters were as split as the rest of the country on whether we should leave the EU”.
We all know the national figures were 52:48.
However, among Labour voters the remain vote was 64%.
Moreover, currently 73% Labour voters think it was wrong to leave (and 89% of Labour members); 57% support a second referendum; and 83% of Labour members voted remain.
David Beere
London
• A crumbling government, a PM who has lost all authority, a cabinet at war with itself and a deeply divided, hung parliament: if all this does not call for a general election, what does?
David Winnick
London
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
• Do you have a photo you’d like to share with Guardian readers? Click here to upload it and we’ll publish the best submissions in the letters spread of our print edition
