Joining the Conservative Party in an effort to help bring it back to its authentic values

SIR – I joined the Conservative Party yesterday (Letters, July 11) and received thanks by email. I replied, saying that I, and I hope many thousand others, had joined in order to express disgust at the betrayal of the people by the incumbent Prime Minister and the Cabinet.

The party promised faithfully to honour the result of the referendum and has singularly failed to do so.

If, as now seems likely, we end up living in an EU colony, the Conservative Party, as currently constituted, will be wholly responsible.

I have joined only in an effort somehow to influence a huge change of direction and to attempt a return to real Conservative values and policies.

Andrew Perrins

Measham, Leicestershire

SIR – I’ve joined the Conservatives! This thing is not over yet.

Jonathan Carr

Dawlish, Devon

SIR – I joined the Conservative Party on Tuesday night.

Surely, now is the time for Conservative voters to get our party back and halt this slide towards Christian Democrat neo-socialism.

Stephen Curtis

Redhill, Surrey

SIR – There have been calls for Conservative Party members not to tear up their membership cards, so that they remain eligible to vote for a new leader should Theresa May leave Downing Street.

Back in 2001, William Hague triggered a leadership contest after losing the general election. One of those who stood was David Davis, a man I was keen to vote for. However, this was denied to me by the parliamentary party, whose rules allow only two candidates to go forward for election by the members.

Mr Davis was rejected by the party, and I was left with a choice of Iain Duncan Smith and Ken Clarke, neither of whom I wanted.

As there is such a chasm between the Conservative Party and its members, I doubt that any two candidates put forward would have the full support of any of the membership.

Matthew Biddlecombe

Sampford Courtenay, Devon

SIR – There is a growing myth that the departure from office of Theresa May must entail a general election. This is poppycock.

Five times in my life, there has been a frictionless transfer of premiership with no election by the public: Eden to Macmillan (1956), Macmillan to

Douglas-home (1963), Thatcher to Major (1990), Blair to Brown (2007) and Cameron to May (20l6).

The Conservatives have a mandate until 2022. They should complete it, albeit under a leader with the guts to accomplish a complete clear-out of the inherited dross.

Frederick Forsyth

Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire

SIR – I am afraid that Malcolm Allen (Letters, July 12) is mistaken in his belief that the Chequers proposals for exiting the EU were arrived at by open democratic debate.

They were the work of a small cabal at No 10, operating in secret under the direction of Mrs May’s unelected special adviser on Europe, and in competition with the department of state established by the Prime Minister to do that job, the members of which were kept in the dark. Its own plans for Brexit appear to have been quietly shelved.

I believe this to be unconstitutional and reminiscent of the kitchen cabinet days of the Blair government, which I had hoped were behind us.

The finalised plans were “cleared” with the German chancellor before being presented to the Cabinet, which was given just hours to digest them before being bounced into accepting them under duress at Chequers. Far

from being open and democratic, it seems to be the standard operating method of the European Union itself. It appears our years of membership have indeed twisted our institutional practices into its image.

Malcolm Whistance

Edgware, Middlesex

SIR – Fear no more the heat of the sun, just the Letters page, Leading Articles and Allison Pearson.

You assume, incorrectly, that most people do not support the proposed Chequers plan. We do. Lord Hague’s argument for realism (Comment, July 10) is the only way forward, with realistic Theresa May at the helm, not the self-centred Boris Johnson.

Barbara Scarrott

London SW15

SIR – Could somebody please tell Liam Fox, the International Trade Secretary, that we, the electorate, do not want to “depend on the European Union’s response” in any way?

Alec West

Coldstream, Berwickshire

SIR – Might I suggest that an appropriate place to sign the proposed EU trade deal would be a railway carriage in a forest near Paris?

D J Cudlip

Stroud, Gloucestershire