I bow to the seniority of your 82-year-old correspondent Michael Knowles, who believes that parliament has “sabotage[d] the vote in 2016 referendum” (Letters, 10 April). As a mere 70-year-old, I can still assert that 16.1 million is a very large number and quite close to 17.4 million. A parliament that feverishly agonises over the views represented by both voting groups appears to be working far harder to represent the views of the whole electorate than seems to be the case with a prime minister and her acolytes who incessantly claim to represent “the will of the people”, based entirely on the slightly larger group’s view expressed three years ago.
Frank Paice
Norwich
• Like Michael Knowles, I have spent a lifetime supporting Labour, first joining in 1959, and campaigning for the party for many years. I agree with him that many working-class voters feel badly let down. But to suggest that the hesitation on the part of most Labour MPs to support Brexit is because they think people don’t matter is quite wrong. It is ordinary working people who will suffer most from the consequences of any Brexit, let alone a “no deal” crash out. The least affected will be the super-elite who told us that our departure from the EU would be easy. Our chances of constraining out-of-control capitalism are few enough inside the EU; outside, they are zero.
Martin Harris
London
• Michael Knowles makes a good case for observing the 2016 result but, unfortunately for him, it didn’t stop there. What a second referendum would be deciding on is the benefits of leaving or not leaving – matters that were lied about in 2016 (by leavers) or not much explored (by remainers). He is right about the aim of the second referendum being to reverse the 2016 result, but wrong about the reasons.
The changed circumstance is the arrival of 1.5 million new young voters. A large majority of young people favour remaining, and it is they who are going to carry the can of leaving, not the old, such as Michael Knowles and me (an 89-year-old lifelong Labour supporter). It is these young people whom those of my persuasion are desperate to protect.
Ted Clark
Leamington Spa, Warwickshire
• Michael Knowles writes about the “brazen promises” apparently made by 450 MPs concerning the implementation of article 50. But no mention of the “brazen promise” of an extra £350m a week plastered over the sides of the infamous double-decker bus.
Chris Jones
Bewdley, Worcestershire
• 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
