Remainers need to recognise just how dysfunctional the EU is
SIR – Venetia Caine’s letter (“Brexit can’t happen”, August 28) is elegantly put – but wrong.
She says “the EU is not perfect”. It certainly is not. It is a behemoth, tied up with self-made protectionist rules and regulations, and administered by puffed-up bureaucrats.
We can do far better on our own. Christopher Carver
Yeovil, Somerset
SIR – What message would it send to the world (including Brussels) if Britain ran away from Brexit because the process was too “difficult”? We would become a laughing stock.
Of course Brexit can happen. The only serious impediments are those created by the EU. Its negotiating stance is that of a bully: further evidence that it is incompatible with British notions of fair governance.
If we’re going to walk away from anything, it should be the negotiating table. Andrew Woodward
Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia SIR – History tells us that leaving an established union is impossible.
This was clearly demonstrated in America. The total failure of the colonists to break away from England in the years 1775-1783 should be a lesson to us all – and especially to those troublesome, daydreaming Brexiteers. Marylou Grimberg
Harpenden, Hertfordshire
SIR – Those who claim that leaving the EU is too difficult, or even impossible, are talking nonsense.
Our involvement in the European project was an aberration, running counter to hundreds of years of British history. It was inevitable that we would eventually recognise that fact and leave. Colin Bullen
Tonbridge, Kent
SIR – Is it not time to lay down, in statute, which categories of decision are appropriate for any future referendum, and the conditions to which the result should be subject?
A referendum provides no mechanism for periodic review of the verdict, unlike local and general elections. Furthermore, a result that flows from a simple plurality of votes incorporates none of the checks and balances enshrined in our tradition of representative parliamentary democracy. Remarkably, such safeguards were absent in the European Union Referendum Act 2015.
The following conditions for future referendums would be appropriate. First, a threshold (in terms of the percentage of the eligible electorate participating) that is required to confer legitimacy on the poll; secondly, a minimum level of support for any change to the status quo, in order to ensure that the ballot has lasting legitimacy; and, thirdly, the support of the majority of the nations that constitute the United Kingdom for any such change. Dr Millan Sachania
Chertsey, Surrey