Lords’ high-handed approach to Brexit damages trust in democracy
SIR – Charles Moore is spot on (“The Peers vs the People power grab confirms the thesis that led to Brexit”, Comment, May 5). We have Lord Hailsham – who, when he was an MP, expected us to pay for his lifestyle – moving an amendment that undermines our negotiating position with the EU and threatens to thwart the will of the British people.
Both main parties in the Commons are committed by their manifestos to leaving the EU. It is the duty of the unelected Lords to support that intent, not to patronise the 17.4million who voted for Brexit. In their arrogance they are betraying the trust of the British people in our democracy. Lack of democracy in Brussels was one of the key reasons why so many of us voted to leave.
Cdre Malcolm Williams RN (retd) Southsea, Hampshire
SIR – Charles Moore uses his article to make personal attacks on individuals, rather than sticking to the issues – a sure sign, as Margaret Thatcher would have said, that he’s already lost the argument.
The Commons can reject any amendments presented by the Lords. If the Commons accepts them, that is parliamentary democracy in action.
If these particular amendments are accepted, it is for one important reason. Voters rejected Theresa May’s explicit appeal for a mandate for her form of Brexit in last year’s general election. She has no clear majority in the Commons to carry through her wishes. It was the will of the people that Mrs May and her Government alone should not be free to negotiate our Brexit future. There could have been no clearer democratic message.
Philip A Oakes
London NW3
SIR – The assertion by several MEPS that membership of the EU Customs Union is the only effective protection against “US bullying” (Letters, May 4) is disingenuous. It overlooks the central fact that, so long as we are members of the Customs Union, we are not allowed to reach individual trade deals with the US (or any other country, for that matter). Such deals can only be done in our name by the EU’S trade negotiators. That is why we have to leave the Customs Union.
Antony Ward
Folkestone, Kent
SIR – Your obituary (May 6) of Sherban Cantacuzino said he was “depressed, not by the prospect of death but by the imminence of Brexit, which dealt a blow to his sense of Britain”.
That same obituary explains that he had come to Britain in 1939, when it was an independent sovereign nation. As such, it came to the aid of continental European countries that had fallen under the Nazi yoke.
I and my fellow Brexiteers are mystified by the idea that Brexit is hostile to Europe. We voted to leave a political body that lacks democratic accountability and deprives this country of basic freedoms.
Elizabeth Roberts
Carlisle, Cumbria