YP Letters: Calls to re-run Brexit referendum put democracy at risk

A FEW days ago, I had an online dialogue with a devout Remainer, who, like many, claims lies during the campaign up to the referendum, such as £350m a week for the NHS if we leave, caused the outcome.

So it’s time to have another one, with “the people making a decision based on a clear understanding of what will replace our membership”, and “opinion polls are showing that as the people become better informed about Brexit, that support for it is falling”.

Our dialogue ended after my last response, which was: “Well, before the hype, I decided to vote ‘Leave’. Maybe you’d decided to vote ‘Remain’ well before the hype – in which case, the nonsense presented by both sides during the campaign, had no effect upon either of us; but not so the rest of the electorate, eh!

“We both know that ‘sides’ in any argument are always biased. Providing misleading information, projections and forecasts plus lies is what ‘sides’ do. To expect any difference were there to be any re-run is, frankly, naive.

“The foul play mischief has now put the democracy we know at risk, because the poll that mattered then and now was held on June 23, 2016.”

From: Thomas W Jefferson, Batty Lane, Howden, Goole.

PETER Bye (The Yorkshire Post, August 16) is right when he effectively says that opting to remain in the EU would be to accept that our democratic model is finished and that we should continue the process of subsuming ourselves into its democracy-lite institutions. It would be a one-way street with no reverse gear and no escape.

It is ironic that Ken Cooke draws comfort from our EU membership as protection against Russia’s more aggressive stance. Has he forgotten that it was the EU’s meddling in Ukraine (with President Obama’s complicity) that encouraged Russia, thereby giving President Putin the justification to annex Crimea to safeguard his vital deep-water port facilities?

The EU is perilously close to the rocks that Mr Bye hopes we can avoid, but it could be a close-run thing. When the European Central Bank stops quantitive easing at the end of this year, Italy will struggle to finance itself without taking steps that undermine the credibility of the euro, with unpredictable consequences.

As Mr Cooke says, these 
are troubled times, but all too often it can be traced back to the EU!