A Brexit ‘victory’? Not really – the electoral turnout statistics paint a different picture

Context is all. The Brexit Party has won less than one third of the vote on an approximately 37 per cent turnout, which means only about 11 per cent of the electorate want what Farage now calls a WTO Brexit.

This statistic is an important one to promulgate. It is not enough to take the country down that route, and parliament needs to understand the result properly.

Graham Burnett
Sarn, Wales

Remain parties should gang up

The message from the EU parliament elections is clear. Lib Dems, Greens and Change UK collectively have beaten the Brexit Party but they only got only 22 MEPs, whereas the Brexit Party had 28. An electoral pact with a single list would have resulted not just in more MEPs but also more votes. An alliance between Lib Dems, Greens and Change UK is now critical in preparation for the next general election, which might happen soon and could decide the fate of Brexit. There is political space only for one pro-EU, pro-environment centrist party.

Giuseppe Enrico Bignardi​
Durham

The magic money tree reappears

Dominic Raab proposes to cut income tax to 15p if elected. Claiming he has £26bn “headroom”. If this is the case then why has he not used this surplus to alleviate some of the results of the Tory government’s austerity policies?

Only the Tories would consider cutting taxes when the country is in dire financial straits with every part of the public sector cut to the bone and poverty on the rise. Then on top of that he wants to expose the UK to the economic disaster of Brexit. One recent prominent Brexiteers was quoted as saying the pain would only last 30 years!

G Forward
Stirling

Theresa May could do some good work before she leaves

So here is yet another defect in our “democracy”, and a very alarming one.

The new PM will be chosen by a tiny fraction of the electorate from a party on the verge of collapse. He or she could then decide to prorogue and bypass parliament in order to take us into a no-deal Brexit. There is no procedural mechanism to prevent that happening.

In order to stop it we are dependent on the forward planning of Theresa May, who before her departure could, if she chose, institute cross-party talks that might put in place legislation that would require a parliamentary vote on a no-deal scenario. Failing that we would need to rely on the cussedness and determination of John Bercow, or the sheer luck of enough Tory MPs willing to defect and bring down the government.

Bleed, bleed poor country!

Susan Alexander
Frampton Cotterell

My view of Scottish politics

David Bone, your letter was full of misrepresentation and not a true and honest reflection of how politics have gone in Scotland.

Democracy prevailed in 2014. Independence was voted against – but not as vehemently as you may wish to believe. The ballot paper never once said that we were not allowed to change our minds.

The SNP and Greens both received a majority and the SNP became our Scottish government again, for an impressive third term. This was on a manifesto pledge that if a significant change like being removed from the EU against our will was to occur, then we would ask the people again [for independence]. Are you seriously saying that asking the people again is undemocratic?

You say that your vote has not counted since 2014: well, that seems ironic that you would feel that way while wanting to remain in a system which means Scotland cannot pick its own government. With 533 seats in England, 59 Scotland, 40 in Wales and 18 in Northern Ireland, our votes have counted very little.

We lost in 2014 but instead of blaming everyone else, we picked ourselves up started again and have worked to show the people the merits of independence. When will the unionists stop moaning and actually start building a strong campaign to show the positives of the union?

Ailsa Adams
Address supplied

Trump gains nothing in my esteem

Trump's plan to pardon several accused and convicted war criminals will not help him get brownie points with the military in 2020. Neither would be playing golf in Japan on Memorial Day rather than paying a visit to some of the 26,000 US troops stationed in 31 US military bases throughout Japan. Trump does not understand how his actions affect the troops' morale and the general public’s attitude towards him at home. He annoys me, even more, when he provided aid and comfort to the North Korean dictator who killed US citizens.

Trump then has the audacity to insult an American public official on North Korea's state media by referring to him as "a man with low IQ". On top of that, he misspelled Senator Joe Biden's last name in one of his silly and never-ending tweets, which was neither funny nor cute at all. This is no different than a D student who makes fun of a gifted and talented kid at school. Only the other D students think he is funny. Thank God, Trump is not a stand-up comedian!

Mahmoud El-Yousseph
Westerville, Ohio

Climate change on the syllabus

You report a Labour initiative to include a deeper and fuller studies of the global ecosystem for school children. Many of the school children already demonstrate their desires to save the planet and their own futures, which shows that they have picked up part of the knowledge that will underwrite their concerns and – indeed – all of ours.

So either we accept that they do not need to know much more, and leave the school syllabus alone, or, if they do need to know more, then their demonstrations should perhaps await a deeper understanding of what are the best ways forward.

Mallory Wober
London