YP Letters: There’s nothing moderate about wanting to stay in the EU

Tory grandee Ken Clarke is a former Chancellor.

WHEN Kenneth Clarke says that Theresa May is “running the risk of losing moderates from her party”, the former Chancellor is confusing support for EU membership with political moderation. It is quite obvious that differences run right across traditional political divisions.

It is also quite wrong to suggest that Mrs May has been captured by “right-wing Brexit hardliners”. Far from it. She has seriously let them down by negotiating away many of the advantages of leaving. By failing to make proper contingency plans for leaving without a deal, she has significantly damaged our hopes of getting a good settlement with an organisation whose clear aim is to make us suffer for our decision.

From: John Riseley, Harcourt Drive, Harrogate.

I NOTE with interest that other correspondents are looking to proportional representation as a means of expressing and reflecting the wishes of the people (Natalie Bennett, The Yorkshire Post, February 22).

The present system cannot cope effectively with more than two parties and delivers a binary choice, much the same as a referendum between two package deals. Worse than this, for an early general election (as advocated by some) the mix of views on Brexit within each of the main parties would leave us in doubt as to how votes for a particular candidate would influence the outcome.

I would, however, caution against supporting a gerrymandered PR designed system to assist a Lib Dem-sized party while excluding smaller ones.We have issues of left-right and in-out as well as high-low immigration. That alone gives eight combinations.

But when it comes to negotiations to form a coalition (as is almost inevitable with PR) a party’s order of priority for these issues matters: they are not going to get everything they want.

This takes us up to 48 permutations.

From: Tim Hunter, Farfield Avenue, Knaresborough.

I SAY good riddance to the likes of Anna Soubry etc who have left the Conservative Party. They were clearly never really Conservatives – they were just closet Liberals.

I think both parties are actually returning to normal following the distortions inflicted by Tony Blair and David Cameron.

Now, once more, you know where you stand: you’re either Labour or Conservative.