It is the referendum that has paralysed parliament: presented as the mandate of the people, it reduces members from representatives to delegates, fearful of “dishonouring” it. So far this has been the main reason given for not revoking article 50.
Leaving aside whether it was flawed, by interference or misinformation, it was absurd to embark on it without putting before the people any clear indication of what our future relationship with Europe would be, or the difficulties of unpicking the years of our membership.
In the indicative vote process (MPs vote to seize control of Brexit from May, 26 March), which surely needs a single transferable vote or similar, some will support revoking article 50 out of conviction that what we currently have is the best deal, and that we should use our membership to work for mutually beneficial reform. Others, however, can honourably support it not as “outcome” but as “process” – a chance to reboot, with the timescale in our own hands. After the proper debate which we should have had at the start of the process, we could then re-trigger article 50, or have a second referendum based on the knowledge of the situation we find ourselves in more than three years on. That, surely, would respect the will of the people in a responsible fashion.
Michael Ainsworth
Bolton
• Polly Toynbee attacks Theresa May’s public No 10 speech last Wednesday, saying it had “brutishly insulted” parliament and that the prime minister was attempting to speak to the people “over MPs’ heads” (The Tories are no longer a party, and Theresa May must know it, 26 March). Nothing of the sort. What Mrs May was doing was telling it as it is about the present parliament, and my regret is that she, and other pro-Brexit MPs, haven’t done it sooner.
The fact is that from the day after the referendum, which was the biggest people’s vote in all our history, remain MPs, who are the majority in parliament, have done everything in their power to defy, change, block, frustrate, and finally to sabotage, the outcome of that vote. What we have all witnessed since June 2016 is a historic struggle between people and parliament. Parliament has come to represent its MPs and them only – their power, their status, their interests, their self-conceit and arrogance.
But 23 June 2016 was the people’s D-day; it was the day when the people of the UK took an almighty historic decision, but one the majority of MPs did not want. And those MPs have done everything in their power since, using every device, to get it overturned.
As it is looking now, they are about to succeed in keeping the UK in the EU. But there will be other issues. Immense, almost incredible inventions and developments have occurred in how people can now communicate directly with each other; and they will outstrip the powers of media and government.
Michael Knowles
Congleton, Cheshire
• Theresa May is right that the process of indicative votes could yield “contradictory outcomes or no outcome at all” (What next? Coup evaporates for the day, but vote for Letwin plan piles confusion onto uncertainty, 26 March). She has form on her side. In 2003, parliament voted yes/no on five options to reform the House of Lords – and there was a majority against every proposal, so no reform. But it ain’t necessarily so. Preference voting would avoid this. Also, making use of second and third preferences leads to a better-informed result.
The late Robin Cook MP tried to introduce preference voting, soon after the Lords debacle, but was rebuffed. He later explained that his reform “would have involved the technological development of a pencil and piece of paper, which was far too big a step for our parliament and its medieval procedures”.
Perry Walker
Hereford
• So this is what parliamentary sovereignty looks like. Theresa May’s government says it dare not ignore the public vote from the referendum, but it is quite prepared to ignore the votes of the people’s representatives in the people’s parliament (Government may ignore result of indicative votes process, says Hancock, theguardian.com, 26 March). As Philip Larkin said: “Well, useful to get that learnt.”
Kevin Naghten
London
• Michael Heseltine (A national humiliation, made in Britain, 26 March) says simply and coherently what – surely – a majority of our nation is thinking and wanting to say if only we had his vast experience and wisdom to draw on. And if only we had more true statesmen like Lord Heseltine we would never have reached this ghastly situation from which it will be hard to escape. He wraps up the case for remain by drawing on a multiplicity of disciplines, many of which seem sadly ignored, looking at the narrow views of the members of the team currently on the case.
Jan Millington
Southborough, Kent
• In 2017, Theresa May decided that “the British people” had voted the wrong way in 2015 and would now wish to change their minds. They did, but not in her favour. Perhaps this is her reason for saying that “the British people” must stay with the decision they made in 2016 and not be permitted to change their minds since she had no intention of doing so. She might do well to recall Ralph Waldo Emerson’s observation: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen … if you would be a man speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon balls, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said to-day.”
Christopher Bigsby
Emeritus professor of American studies, UEA
• When the Brexit inquiry of 2022 starts, one of the first questions will be why it took nearly three years to hold Wednesday’s indicative votes that will establish parliament’s view on Brexit options. Theresa May’s reaction over the next fortnight will determine whether the next question will need answering: “Why did she ignore the expressed will of parliament?”
John Rigby
Much Wenlock, Shropshire
• Did the EU choose 22 May for the Brexit extension date because it is the feast day of St Rita? At her canonisation she was given the title Patroness of Impossible Causes.
Maggie Johnston
St Albans
• I do hope David Hare has already started writing a play about this farce – preferably one that ends with the actors turning to the audience and asking what they think.
Maggie Hamilton
Milford on Sea, Hampshire
• There is a time-honoured formula for a moment such as this. It requires an MP of significant stature to say: “You have sat there too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us be done with you. In the name of God, go.”
Maggie Black
Oxford
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