European elections and a second Brexit vote

The proportional representation system used to elect MEPs makes a joint list or programme difficult and not even effective as votes will be spread within parties (Why won’t the remain parties work together in this election?, Journal, 16 April).

Ukip rose in the 2004, 2009 and 2014 elections as the insurgent anti-establishment, anti-immigrant party. The BNP even won two MEP seats in 2009, tagging along behind Nigel Farage. Today, the government establishment and much of the establishment media are pro-Brexit. Immigration as a salient issue, according to Professor Matthew Goodwin, has declined to just 20% among voters as they see EU citizens heading home and no replacement workers for core services like old-age care.

The insurgent and anti-Conservative government energy is represented by the million who marched in London or the 6 million who signed the revoke e-petition, which the prime minister dismissed with contempt. If the European Research Group represents a no-deal crashout Brexit, May’s deal represents the hardest of hard Brexits.

A formal alliance or pre-election joint lists between clear anti-Brexit parties – the Liberal Democrats, Greens, the Independent Group/Change UK, Scottish National party in Scotland and Plaid Cymru in Wales – won’t happen. But they could stop name-calling each other, as indeed could Labour its erstwhile colleagues. I remember the pleasure Labour MPs and activists got in calling the Social Democratic party “renegades” every name under the sun after their 1981 split from Labour. It didn’t help. Labour lost the next three elections. Similarly, TIG should drop its jejune insults when it will be Labour MPs, with the help of some Tories, who rescue the nation from the Brexit isolationist fanatics.
Dr Denis MacShane
Former Europe minister

• Polly Toynbee is right to say that “what matters most now … is getting out the vote. Everyone needs to register by 3 May.” But don’t just register, get a postal vote. There could be other occasions to vote in the next few months and it would suit those of a certain political persuasion if those votes took place when lots of people are off on their travels, mixing with wicked foreigners far from polling booths.
Marie Catterson
London

• Philip Hammond (Report, 13 April) is surely correct to anticipate a possible Commons majority for a confirmatory vote on the government’s Brexit deal, but overpessimistic on the timetable.

As the draft legislation prepared by the cross-party group I convened included a short “paving bill”, which would substantially foreshorten the preparatory stages, the process could be completed in 16-17 weeks, well before the 31 October deadline.

After endorsement of the drafts by Vince Cable, Dominic Grieve, Chuka Umunna and others in January, my colleagues and I submitted a timeline to Cabinet Office ministers to show how this could be achieved. They have not found fault with this.

Where there is a political will there is a parliamentary way: the legislative process for the 1975 European community referendum took just over 10 weeks.
Paul Tyler
Liberal Democrat spokesperson on constitutional and political reform, House of Lords

• Philip Hammond claims the 31 October deadline leaves insufficient time to organise a confirmatory vote unless the intention to do so is declared within weeks. He alleges that a second vote is therefore unlikely. But since the delay in Brexit day is infinitely extensible and EU leaders are virtually certain to grant extra time were a commitment to a second referendum be made, the deadline for opting for that solution to the Brexit conundrum is still more than six months away.
Bernard Besserglik
Pantin, France

• It has been suggested that Theresa May is possibly the worst PM ever. On the contrary, if she manages to achieve no Brexit and splits the Tory party at the same time, she should be lauded as the greatest PM since Robert Peel.
Paul Buchanan-Barrow
London

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