DON’T THROW SCORN ON POLL

IN response to Andrew Haldane’s (Chair of Macclesfield Liberal Democrats) letter (July 6th) “We don’t know the destination”.

Presumably if David Cameron had managed to secure a victory in the referendum to remain in the EU, then Mr Haldane and the Lib Dems would have been exalting the principles of democracy and duly recognising the will of the people in a free vote.

If the leave side had protested and questioned the result, or demanded a re-run, he would have no doubt told them that democracy had been exercised, the people of the UK had spoken and as a majority their wishes would be implemented and that was the end of the matter.

He would have been right to do so. That is how democracy works. However, because the leave vote won, he now picks holes in the very same democratic process he would have been upholding, because it didn’t provide him with the result he wanted.

He is scornful of the result, scornful of the size of the majority, he does not want to accept “the margin of victory” for the leave side, and implies that the 17 million people who voted to leave the EU were duped, hoodwinked and fooled into voting leave by campaigners who according to him issued “more porky pies than Melton Mowbray bakes in a year”.

What a naive, illinformed and insulting judgement concerning our democratic process.

Do we have to have referendum after referendum until the losing side get the result they want? Do we rubbish the democratic process every time we are unhappy with the outcome? As for alleged lies, the whole campaign was characterised by wild claims, counter claims, accusations, allegations and unsubstantiated statistics by both sides.

Both sides were rightly criticised and condemned by many independent political commentators for demeaning our democratic process.

However, most importantly, 33 million people in the UK who are quite used to politicians and their dubious claims, made their own minds up, they exercised their right to a free vote and displayed more common sense and intelligence than Mr Haldane would have us believe.

On the question of “porky pies”, I wonder if Mr Haldane was as condemnatory when his former Lib Dem, leader Nick Clegg, broke his solemn promise to thousands of young hard-working students not to raise tuition fees?

As soon as he became Deputy Prime Minister he reneged on his promise and the Lib Dems were annihilated at the 2015 general election. Our democratic process in action.

The question to the British people was “Should the UK should remain a member of the EU or leave the EU”, a straightforward question which required a simple answer – “Yes” or “No”.

Each side had three months to make their case, long enough indeed for the British people to make up their own minds. Everyone had the freedom to vote whichever way they wanted. That is the essence of democracy. Paul Heaven Sutton