Follow Switzerland’s referendum policy

IN his leading article, Don Frampton complains about the UK holding too many referendums, when we don’t have enough.

This accounts for the few we do have leading to the political equivalent of civil war, aggravated by our out-dated adversarial political system signified by the opposing sides in the House of Commons separated by two lines along the floor, two swords’ lengths apart.

Opposing sides differ, like black and white, over nearly everything when shades of grey are usually more appropriate, with most votes won or lost by small margins, almost stalemate, compared with the number of voting MPs ordered to obey party whips.

All this leads to alternating governments reversing as much as they can in the time allowed to please their respective paymasters, about every other parliament, causing extreme legislative swings while the nation’s needs change and to grow relatively slowly.

When we had the Brexit referendum result it was clear we had a problem. It was obvious the EU would do all it could to reverse our decision because of the high proportion of EU funding generated by the UK, second only to Germany’s. About one fifth of the VAT collected by Brussels is generated here, as is much of the customs duty on EU imports from North America, for example, and our annual subscription (with or without the rebate).

If the EU can’t keep the UK imprisoned, it will try to bankrupt our economy because the fickle EEC/EC/EU never was going to give-up without a fight for funds to pay its majority net-recipient nations with one vote each in the European Council. That was when we should have formed a national government to resist EU inducements for Westminster and Whitehall and to serve the UK instead of creeping after EU promotion.

The House of Commons should have elected a Brexit Prime Minister from the whole House who would have appointed a cabinet from all parties, because we knew were fighting for the continued existence of the United Kingdom, already in danger of breaking up because London had been milking the provinces and other UK members to fund unnecessary luxuries for foreigners occupying South East England, while starving essential investment elsewhere.

The attitude of MPs in the public mind was “duck houses”, extravagant funding for MPs’ home improvements – a few repaid and were forgiven, while many more should have been taken to court.

I think most Brits would prefer frequent referendums as held by the like the Swiss, as a part of daily life. They use them to instruct expert legislators who draft longer lasting laws because they don’t have to waste time deciding, “yes” or “no” on their thinking population’s behalf, before the media can inflate every contest, like the Cup Final or the University Boat Race.

Tony Maskell Newton Ferrers, Devon