A dangerous path to take

Arthur Oxley in responding to John Stott, Echo September 3, argues that in the name of democracy we should hold another referendum on leaving the EU.

What kind of democracy would this represent?

Overturning a democratic decision by the majority just because you don’t like the result is a very dangerous path to take.

Mr Oxley states “Mr Stott seems to believe democracy and free speech is only allowed when it suits the cause they support.”

Is this not what Mr Oxley is proposing?

Mr Oxley refers to accusations of people being traitors.

From what I have seen this has been reserved to describe MPs for leave voting constituencies meeting with EU officials to discuss tactics to overturn the decision to leave.

Our elected representatives in Parliament voted 498 to 114 to trigger Article 50 setting in motion the UK leaving the EU.

Does Mr Oxley consider overturning this as being democratic?

Polls seem to suggest that very few people in the North East would change their vote.

Mr Oxley refers to the 1975 referendum and states “a large number of people agreed to continue our links with Europe.”

Perhaps that was a totally different “Europe” people voted for.

It has morphed from the EEC to the European Union.

That would explain why the vote to leave increased from 8.4 million in 1975 to 17.4 million in 2016.

It is also telling that the remain vote reduced by 1.3 million over the same period.

Doesn’t this huge surge of 9 million people voting to leave deserve respect? Alan Wright, High Barnes.