Vote for sovereignty
I’M BEMUSED that so many people who voted Remain (or didn’t vote at all) now think they can explain to us Leavers what we voted for and have labelled it ‘soft Brexit’.
We knew exactly what we wanted — for our country, the UK, to get back full sovereignty over its own law-making and how those laws are implemented.
The word ‘sovereignty’ means ‘supremacy’, and that’s exactly what we voted to be returned to us — the supremacy of our Parliament over all others, to formulate, revise or repeal our own laws.
It follows that, as with any other country outside the EU, no agreement or treaty should thereafter be entered into that can in any way diminish our sovereignty, like the creeping process of losing our ability to decide on our border controls or immigration policy without recourse to 27 other EU members.
How many countries of good standing outside the EU, such as Australia or Canada, would trade their sovereignty for a few pieces of silver?
That’s what those who would water down the decision of the British people would have us do.
If non-membership of the European single market is the price we have to pay for our freedom to think and act as a truly independent nation again, then so be it.
TONY GOLDSMITH, Bracklesham Bay, W. Sussex.
HOW can you be independent if someone else in Brussels or Strasbourg makes your rules?
W. GRANT, Edinburgh.
MEMBERS of the UK Parliament are elected under the Representation of the People Act to represent the wishes of all the electorate, not just those who voted for a particular party. In June 1975, the UK held a referendum on membership of the European Economic Community, which allowed tariff-free trading between member nations.
Since then, the UK electorate has had no direct say in the inexorable encompassment of the UK into the nest of vipers now known as the European Union. Two treaties were imposed on us without reference to the UK population.
In 1993, the Treaty of Maastricht, which requires ‘ever closer union’, was introduced, followed in 2007 by the Treaty of Lisbon with its infamous Article 50 — which almost confines a once sovereign country to irrevocable membership.
On April 1, 2017 — the deadline set by Theresa May for invoking the clause — we will start the formal process of finding a way out.
The June 23 referendum gave a clear mandate to our representatives, and they are required through the Act which put them there to honour it. If MPs prefer to make up the rules to suit themselves, then come back Guy Fawkes, because all is forgiven!
d.M. LOXLEY, Pickering, n. Yorks.
WHY are those in favour of MPs having a vote on the kind of Brexit we are going to have before Article 50 is triggered being castigated as thwarting the will of the people when the Commons briefing paper 07212 no 5: types of referendum (page 25) states that such referendums aren’t binding, only advisory?
With the majority voting to leave being so small — 52 per cent to 48 per cent — it’s undemocratic for the Government to try to trigger Article 50 without first winning a Commons vote to do so.
VALERIE CREWS, Beckenham, Kent.