Brexiteers must be open to all possibilities – including staying in the EU

Liam Fox – one of the Three Brexiteers charged by the Prime Minister with finding out the costs of leaving the EU if she or Parliament, if it is allowed to exercise its much vaunted sovereignty, is ever to realistically take the recommendation of the EU referendum – has hailed the Brexit vote as both historic and brave. It’ll certainly be historic if we actually go through with it, but brave?

To be brave one must first face fear – and I didn’t notice any Leave voters expressing one iota of that in these pages or elsewhere. Indeed, it is striking that Leavers had no fears for the future whatsoever that way.

The costs must be evaluated before the decision is finally taken one way or another – and remaining, if there's nothing to be gained and much lost, will thus have to sensibly stay on the table. There’s no other way. No sane British government could do anything else surely.

John Haran Address supplied

Has Mary Dejevsky (Voices, 30 September) missed the core economic argument of the Brexiteers? Free trade as espoused by 19th century economists was highly effective for British overseas investment and the City of London, but was highly destructive to domestic agriculture and industry – just as its 21st century revival promises to be.

Mark Grey Covent Garden, London

It was great to see Liam Fox championing free trade, zero tariffs and the South Korea-EU deal. If only there was an organisation we could join that would give us access to all this.

Laurence Taylor Newcastle upon Tyne

Dangerous decision by British Airways

Will BA also be charging for water aboard its short-haul flights after announcing that it will no longer be serving free food? Passengers tend to get dehydrated on flights and are encouraged to drink plenty of liquids for health reasons.

If water is to be charged for and some passengers go without, there could be health consequences and BA could be held responsible. I personally fly with BA to Cyprus at least twice a year. In future I shall fly with Aegean, whose inflight service I am reliably informed is excellent.

Souren Sarafyan Cyprus

Like it or lump it, Labour only wins one way

In reply to Michael Heaton (29 September), one wonders which “fair” electoral system would deliver a famous victory to Corbyn and McConnell’s faded, red flag-waving Politburo? The task ahead for Labour is to turn a sea of blue in England red, plus decapitate the SNP thistle in Scotland and persuade four out of five swing voters to opt for 21st century socialism.

Tony Blair only converted Tory Worcester Women and managed three New Labour majorities by raiding Thatcher’s wardrobe and stealing the clothes of the Conservatives on social and economic policy. Whenever Labour has stood on a traditional socialist platform, since Harold Wilson’s resignation, it has failed to win power on every occasion: Callaghan in 1979, Foot in 1983, Kinnock in 1987 and 1992, Brown in 2010 and Miliband in 2015. The voters roundly rejected a dated socialist vision then and they will again in 2020.

Even with an alternative system, Labour’s only hope of forming even a minority government is to become a British reply to the US Democrats, a modern social democratic centrist movement. After all, in 1992, Bill Clinton only made the Democrats electable again by adopting a right-wing welfare policy and bombing Iraq. Blair pulled off the same trick in 1997. Labour has never recovered its winning streak since.

Unless the population outside the English metropolitan cities is given a collective head transplant by a farleft alien before 2020, they will roundly reject Corbyn, Abbott and McConnell’s Morning Star vision, whether by PR, AV, a show of hands or a caucus. Never mind first past the post, Corbyn’s Labour has already fallen at the first post by ignoring the deficit again at Liverpool, with a open cheque for adding to it with more tax and spend.

Anthony Rodriguez Staines-upon-Thames, Middlesex

Sturgeon must remember all of Scotland

Nicola Sturgeon complains about “Scotland being dragged out of the EU against its will” because of the way that other parts of the UK voted in June, and she demands that Scotland be exempted from the UK’s exit. I am sure she would wish to be consistent. She should therefore accept that the Borders, Orkney and Shetland, Aberdeen and Edinburgh should not be dragged out of the UK against their will simply because Greater Glasgow and Dundee may want to separate from the UK.

As she contemplates another separation referendum, Ms Sturgeon should think seriously about observing the will of the majority in areas not sympathetic to her ambitions. Let her have her People’s Republic of Glasgow and Dundee and leave the rest of us in peace.

Jill Stephenson Edinburgh

Nicola Sturgeon is living in the past. She admits independence is her teenage dream. Of course, Sturgeon was a teenager 30 years ago when, sadly unlike now, North Sea energy was economically viable. Yet the nationalist leader clings on to those long- gone days, peddling a pointless dream, seemingly indifferent to the impact on our standard of living.

As most voters in Scotland move on from Brexit, Sturgeon persists in a bizarre fantasy that we can remain in the single market, as though 23 June didn’t happen. Or that an independent Scotland will waltz its way

into the EU, like a professional from Strictly. And, so the Sturgeon narrative goes, not involving many years’ waiting and costs too massive for Scotland to sustain.

Perhaps an independent Scotland might have been financially viable in the 1970s. It may well have been better if the UK hadn’t left the EU. But the reality is that the oil is gone and Scotland’s trade with the rest of the UK is four times that with Europe. Sturgeon’s Pavlovian response to every problem is independence. But sadly for the nationalist leader's childhood dreams, it’s an outdated solution appropriate for another era.

Martin Redfern Edinburgh

Expertise from experts, please

What makes the GP Youssef El-Gingihy (Voices, 30 September) an authority in international trade? And should I consult an economist if I have a sore foot?

Tom Van den Burgh

Address supplied

Disingenuous train tips

I commuted on the Central line many moons ago and Anna Rhodes’s article (30 September) brought to memory the recording of Gerard Hoffnung at the Oxford Union on 4 December 1958. One of his anecdotes was about “information to foreign tourists” at the Festival of Britain 1951: ”When entering a railway carriage, make sure you shake hands with all the passengers.”

John Godfrey Dumbleton, Gloucestershire