Talk of returning to the EU weakens Britain’s negotiating position
SIR – Theresa May’s de facto deputy, David Lidington, has said that we could rejoin a reformed European Union within a generation, suggesting it is an idea “for future parliaments to consider” (report, January 20).
It seems to have escaped his notice that our present Parliament is already considering it: indeed, ever since the Brexit vote, some Remainer politicians have been plotting for a second referendum, hoping to undo the first.
Mr Lidington, himself a Remainer, claims that he supports the Brexit vote; but his (and other Remainers’) lack of enthusiasm for delivering the democratic will of the people may not be unconnected with the difficulties we are now experiencing in negotiating with Brussels. Ann Farmer
Woodford Green, Essex
SIR – As a diehard Brexiteer who waited 40 years for a say, I have no objections at all to the people having another vote on Europe in the future.
A statutory gap of 25 years between referendums (on any matter) would allow for stable periods of government in between, and clip the wings of disruptive politicians, while still giving the average citizen two or three chances of a say on such significant matters in their lifetime.
What I cannot accept is backpedalling on Brexit now, or another vote in the next few years: the favoured option of a political elite that would never grant us another if it got the result it wanted. Victor Launert
Matlock Bath, Derbyshire
SIR – Mr Lidington is surely right in one respect. The EU is going to change, and may well be configured differently in a generation’s time.
However, any reconfiguration would have to be dramatic for the majority of people to reconsider their referendum decision. For a start, the EU would need to drop its unequivocal goal of the centralised union of its member states – thereby ending the undemocratic political project that is the EU. European cooperation would continue to be essential, but the EU itself would no longer exist. Lord Shinkwin
London SW1
SIR – It’s more likely that, after we have enjoyed 10 or 20 years of exciting, successful life free of the EU’S tethers, they will want to join us, rather than the other way round. Christopher Lambert
Tadworth, Surrey
SIR – Jeremy Warner (Comment, January 17) writes that “we cannot know what Churchill would have thought of Brexit”.
Yes, we can. His concept of a “United States of Europe” specifically excluded Britain (“We are with them but not of them”), and he was appalled when he heard of Harold Macmillan’s bid to enter the European Economic Community. He would have positively rejoiced at the referendum result. Professor Alan Sked
London School of Economics