We need a second referendum as the politicians have messed up

MEASURED by any yardstick, the Tories’ strategy for negotiating a break from the EU has failed dismally.

The party is hopelessly divided on what Brexit should mean, more bitterly now than ever before when Mr Cameron called a referendum in the hope that the result would shut up the anti-EU grumblers once and for all. It is little appreciated just how little respect there is and has been for the Tory Party in Brussels. In 2014, Cameron forced his MEPs to join an alliance of extreme right-wingers in the European Parliament, much to the surprise and disgust of more moderate Christian Democrats like Angela Merkel.

Just a few days ago, Tory MEPs abstained in a censure motion of the Hungarian racist PM Victor Organ.

Decades of lies and insults by Tory- leaning newspapers have not gone unnoticed. Margaret Thatcher bullied and nagged and chivvied. Is it any wonder that the Tory Party is intensely disliked? Dracula would have stood a better chance of making a deal!

So now what? A blind Brexit with all its disastrous consequences? Brexit voters know deep down they made a mistake but many are too proud or stubborn to admit it.

Perhaps, even if they do not care whether they will suffer personally or not, they should look at their children and grandchildren and swallow their pride. Second referendum now! - because the politicians have utterly messed up and are too incompetent to get the country out of this terrible mess.

John Payne