Attempt to stop Brexit

SIR – If Parliament votes down the Government’s deal with the EU, or if there is no deal at all, the amendments to the EU Withdrawal Bill demanded by the Tory rebels will empower Parliament to direct the Government to stop the Brexit process in its tracks.

That would negate the very decision that Parliament itself first invited the people to take on its behalf, and then voted to implement.

It would be a constitutional outrage were this to happen. The amendments should be resisted at all costs.

John Graham Epsom, Surrey

SIR – Conservative Party constituency associations are supposed to select with rigour and sound judgment electable candidates who show genuine commitment to the party’s publicly espoused political platform (most obviously the general election manifesto) and the party’s values.

The intensifying rebellion by more than a dozen Tory MPS over Brexit, putting them directly at odds with the party’s 2017 manifesto, reveals the scope of the associations’ failure.

It may be that those running the constituency associations of such MPS do not in fact care. There is always a danger of associations falling under the sway of cliques for whom friendship with the MP insidiously begins to supplant political principles.

But the people, the electorate, do care. And, sometimes gradually and sometimes quite suddenly, they start to think that they have been deceived and they don’t like it one little bit. It might not be enough to make them vote Corbyn but it could turn them off voting. In that event the Conservatives will be smashed at the next election.

So constituencies represented by Tory anti-brexit rebel MPS need to wake up. The electorate will want to know that MPS who bring down a Conservative government are not going to reappear as card-carrying candidates next time round. Terry Smith

London NW11