Comparison does not work

Sir, – Charles Wardrop (Letters, October 18), in chiding those who feel cheated by the Brexit referendum and are keen to avoid the catastrophe it is sure to bring, uses the football analogy that Brexiteers often quote – if ones’s team loses a game of football, would one call for a re-match?

In asking the question he destroys his own argument.

If a winning team is later found to have broken the rules, often even trivial ones of administration, there would be no need to call for a re-match – the authorities would call the result invalid and instruct one.

I recall Dunfermline using an ineligible player as a late substitute against Stenhousemuir while leading 7-1.

A re-run was ordered. There are countless examples.

He shoots himself in the foot with his horse racing analogy too – if my horse came second behind one whose trainer or owner had misled the horse authorities or broken the rules, my horse would walk off with the prize.

By contrast, fair play and honourable intention would make the result stick.

Anyway, all of which is a moot point in relation to the People’s Vote.

It is not a re-run as Mr Wardrop contends, but a new referendum on the unplanned, unexpected and never explained outcome of the original referendum, whose acceptance is assured by the very creation of the next one.

Gordon Campbell. 59 Garvock Hill, Dunfermline.