Remainers calling for a second vote betray their disdain for democracy

SIR – It is ironic that the antidemocratic elitists calling for a second EU referendum have chosen to name their campaign People’s Vote.

Believing that those who voted to leave the EU were obviously too thick to understand the wall-to-wall scaremongering of Project Fear, they have now decided to insult the electorate’s intelligence further by claiming that their coalition of the deluded is for “the people”.

Fortunately, the people aren’t as stupid as they think we are, and we can see their purpose. It’s time they got the message: you lost the vote, get over it. It’s called democracy. Phil Coutie

Exeter, Devon

SIR – With the Government’s defeat in the Lords over the question of whether Britain should remain in a customs union after Brexit (report, April 19), we see (yet again) the privileged few telling the “peasantry” what is best for them.

Once we are free from the EU, our attention should turn to overhauling another outdated and undemocratic institution. Philip Hall Petersfield, Hampshire

SIR – Your editorial (April 20) suggests that, since every former Cabinet secretary spoke in favour of the pro-customs union amendment in the Lords, this must demonstrate political bias on their part; ditto the position taken by most senior civil servants during the referendum campaign.

An equally valid explanation is that these public servants, with their unequalled knowledge of public governance and the practical implications of policy, were better placed than anyone else to judge the wisdom of leaving the EU, and came to the virtually unanimous view that to leave would be deleterious to the country they vow to serve; and that those now in the Lords have retained their sense of duty to their country, and therefore seek at least to limit the damage of enacting the will of the 37 per cent of the British electorate who voted leave.

In other words, if they have a bias, it is towards evidence-based pursuit of the national interest. Peter Geall

Hertford

SIR – Christopher Booker (The Last Word, April 15) is incorrect in saying that Switzerland is a member of the EEA. It is not. It trades satisfactorily with the EU’s single market through a range of bilateral treaties, which is what Britain seeks to do after Brexit.

If Switzerland can be granted such trade access, why not us? Britain is the second- or third-largest economy in the EU, imports far more from the EU than it exports to it, and its market for consumer goods is bigger than even Germany’s. To organise a clean, non-toxic Brexit should be a nobrainer for the EU – unless, of course, its negotiators and officials actually have no brains. Michael Coulson London SW18