The Independent Group is what this country needs

MPs currently sitting on their hands while the country flounders must stand up and be counted by realigning with the new Independent Group of seven courageous exLabour MPs.

If enough MPs join them, they could, within the lifetime of this parliament, reform a political system that has held Britain back and contributed to many of the woes we now face. Replacing the first-past-the-post voting system with proportional representation, for example, would enable politicians to be less fearful of their constituency parties and, if they so wished, to join a party more to their liking without fear of disappearing without trace under our two-party system.

Proportional representation might also help governments plan for the longer term, rather than pursuing short-term policies primarily designed to win the next general election – with the comparatively small number of marginal seats capable of swinging the vote no doubt uppermost in their minds.

Roger Hinds Surrey

Combatting antisemitism helps us all

At the roots of antisemitism is a detestation of a group who for millennia have not only dared to be different, but have been very successful at the same time. Jews are often the first to be singled out, but other unpopular minorities follow: Muslims, Catholics, Pakistanis, Travellers, Irish, immigrants – the list is endless. Society must be resolute against antisemitism, not only because it is evil in itself, but because if the Jews are the first, which one of us is the next to suffer hatred and exclusion? I applaud the courage of the seven MPs who have stood against the tide of antisemitism sweeping through their party.

Francis Beswick Stretford

This new group has no plan

I thought there could be nothing more depressing for an ex-Labour supporter than the sight of Corbyn pootling with his vegetables while Rome burns, but then four political flyweights, two lightweights and one middleweight went independent.

I resigned from the Labour Party over the Iraq war having been a member since student days and having served as a Labour councillor.

It is not obvious why these seven have resigned now. Chuka Umunna sent out weak SOS signals for

months about setting up a centrist party but he has no manifesto and doesn’t sound like a leader. A couple of others seem to have jumped before they were pushed.

Plus, it’s not clear what they intend to actually do other than “wait and see” if anyone joins them. Meanwhile the rest of the Labour Party seems to be intent on “waiting to see” if the seven who cut themselves adrift in the empty dingy have any success before making their own “principled” moves – or not…

Amanda Baker Edinburgh

No confidence in either

John Rentoul wrote that the Magnificent Seven, in a future vote of no confidence in May’s government, “would refuse to force an election” (Rebels have given a serious boost to May’s job security, News, yesterday).

What election?

If such a no-confidence vote succeeded, there would be no majority for a confidence vote in Jeremy Corbyn, so the only option would be a cross-party government of the sane, with both sets of loonies in opposition. All it needs is for seven Conservatives to join them.

Philip Goldenberg Woking

Save us from ourselves

Andrew Grice is right: any of his suggested “greats from the past” would surely have avoided anything like Theresa May’s clumsily negotiated Brexit deal and her block-headed stubbornness since (If only the old heavyweights were here to handle Brexit, Section 2, Monday). Indeed, if they had been in power in 2016, they would never have contemplated the antithesis of representative democracy that is a referendum.

In the total absence of any politician of statesmanlike stature, perhaps the newborn group of seven independent MPs may yet be able to perform the role of the child in the mesmerised crowd and point to the emperor’s new clothes that is the madness of leaving the EU in today’s dire circumstances. Someone in the UK must urgently save us from ourselves.

Stan Underwood Lincoln

The power of dreams

Honda plans to close it’s Swindon plant in 2021. Does this mean its motto “The Power of Dreams” meant that one day you would wake up and realise the dream was just that?

Kartar Uppal Sutton Coldfield