People are getting tired of gripes from Remainers like Lord Heseltine

sir – I always had a lot of time for Michael Heseltine. He articulated the dangers of an extreme Left-wing government very well indeed.

However, he has lost the plot with his suggestion that a government led by Jeremy Corbyn might be preferable to Brexit (report, December 27).

Former high-profile politicians never seem able to leave the stage with any grace. Tony Blair, John Major, Neil Kinnock, Nick Clegg, Peter Mandelson and others have all been airing their views on Brexit; they think they are important, but the rest of us consider them irrelevant.

The people on the ground have much more sense than any of them – and it is time they realised it. Mick Ferrie

Mawnan Smith, Cornwall

sir – Lord Heseltine should heed the threat from John Mcdonnell, the shadow chancellor, who is backing the return of “flying pickets” and “sympathy strikes” (report, December 28). Strike after strike in the Seventies, often supported by “flying pickets”, brought the company I worked for to its knees.

If such things started to happen again, Britain would become the “sick man of Europe”. Ron Kirby

Dorchester

sir – Lord Heseltine became yesterday’s man when he stormed out of Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet, and little he has said since then has been of much relevance to serious political debate.

It would be far better to leave him be and deny him the chance to play martyr, than to acknowledge his misbehaviour by removing the Conservative whip. Steve Haynes

Chichester, West Sussex

sir – Who are these minnows saying that Lord Heseltine – a giant of the Conservative Party – should lose the whip?

He has simply spoken the truth as he sees it about Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn. In a democracy, politicians should have the right to state their opinions without being treated like heretics and cast out.

Given that 48 per cent of voters wanted to remain in the EU, Lord Heseltine has as much of a right to express his views as those who voted to leave. Valerie Crews

Beckenham, Kent

sir – While it may be justified to remove the whip from Lord Heseltine, he is only one of the hundreds of peers making a mockery of Brexit.

With Remainers vastly outnumbering Leavers in the House of Lords, it is quite possible that Brexit could be made to happen “in name only”.

When I voted in the EU referendum, I did not expect I would be swapping the unelected EU Commission for the unelected Lords. Henry Ireton

Hordle, Hampshire