IF I hear another politician mention “the will of the people” as justification for Brexit my head will explode. I suppose it’s the will of the people that a generation in the UK is suffering austerity caused primarily by greed in the banking system and that we have record rates of homelessness, child poverty and early death as a result.
When was the will of the people considered when thousands died penniless while awaiting Universal Credit appeals? When did we ask for more of our elderly and infirm to die over winter due to cutbacks in social welfare? Is it the will of the people that as a percentage of the average national wage that the UK pension is by a huge margin the worst in the EU and G10 and the government is pushing back the age of retirement? Was it the will of the people that we are complicit in invading foreign countries and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people simply to protect the Petrodollar and the oil indus-try? As far as I can see the will of the people carries little or no weight in any decisions taken by Parliament especially if you live north of Hadrian’s Wall.
Gutless politicians are hiding behind the mantra of “the will of the people”, an opinion expressed what seems years ago in an advisory referendum in a political system with no written constitution and where government has no legal obligation to honour the result of any referendum. We have regular General Elections because the electorate is allowed to change its collective mind in the light of subsequent developments; to base the future prosperity of a country on the result of a flawed referendum where only 37 per cent of the total possible electorate voted in favour of the proposition is madness, certainly not democracy. The least we should expect in a democracy is that there is a confirmatory referendum once the actual terms of Brexit are known and those who couldn’t vote because of age or didn’t vote through ignorance or apathy have the opportunity to do so. If a sizeable majority favour change, so be it.
Having established the primacy of the will of the people in the function of government then perhaps we could get Westminster to apply its mind to the problems I outlined earlier amongst others which are of their own making, not Brussels nor Strasbourg.
David J Crawford,
85 Whittingehame Court,
1300 Great Western Road, Glasgow.
THROUGHOUT the Brexit debate there has been constant talk of "the will of the people". Both sup-porters of Brexit among the electorate and Brexit-supporting MPs are constantly drawn to this tempt-ing mantra as if it is written into parliamentary democracy in stone.
Those MPs in Leave-voting constituencies who are determined to fulfil Brexit at any cost might care to consider the view of the 18th century Irish philosopher and Whig MP, Edmund Burke, commonly regarded as the father of British conservatism. He went to some pains to interpret the duties of MPs, as he saw it, in a speech in Bristol in 1774: “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”
It is quite clear here that, even when the electorate was limited to those and such as those in society, it was not just the obligation but the duty of an MP to act as a judgment filter in order to avoid enact-ing legislation which was clearly not in the interests of the country. Surely the circumstances of Brexit call for exactly this kind of judgment, lest we be cast into the dubious darkness of right-wing extremism.
Dave Stewart,
6 Blairatholl Avenue, Glasgow.
MARY Thomas (Letters, April 5) believes the current freedom of movement of EU citizens is essential for the well being of for example the NHS, thus accepting general and unrestricted movement, the nature and extent of which is decided effectively by them rather than us.
What is her objection to the more rational alternative, provided by Brexit, of managed movement where we – rather than they – control the nature and extent of that movement, and by which we would be able to tailor it to our needs such as the NHS ?
Alan Fitzpatrick,
10 Solomon’s View, Dunlop.
SOME years ago Murdo Fraser stood for election on a platform of setting up a new, independent Con-servative Party with its own priorities and programme, different from the Tory Party down south. Yet now he castigates Mike Russell for having the odd notion that, in a referendum, Scotland’s preference should not be subordinate to England ("Russell insists SNP will not be bound by result of People’s Vote", The Herald, April 4). Imagine if the EU had a referendum to disallow the UK from leaving the EU, would Mr Fraser would find that acceptable? We are also asked to believe, that if a certain Boris John-son becomes Tory leader, an independent Scottish Tory Party will become a reality. Now, that’s stretching plausibility; Scottish Tories would have to find a backbone first.
Ask yourself, who would fund them? How many Scottish Tories would refuse to “separate”? Given the longevity of obeisance to London, who would formulate policy, and what principles would guide them? On the plus side, they might just turn native, and do what all other nations have done, and vote for independence.
GR Weir,
17 Mill Street, Ochiltree.
THE sight of Westminster MPs cantering back and forward to the voting lobbies, and then a Speaker declaring “Unlock!” should be dumped immediately, unless this is the only exercise the fat cats get.
I saw a quote from Gilbert and Sullivan in the letter from Malcolm Allan (April 5) and thought that if those two were alive today they would be working a double shift, every day.
How sad that the very practices they pilloried are still in place more than 100 years after their death. The practices, and titles are still used, especially in the House of Lords; I particularly like one from the late Oliver Brown, who referred to the “Lord Privy Seal”, who was neither a Lord, a privy nor a seal.
With our current Scottish Parliament we are streets ahead of the so-called Mother of Parliaments.
Jim Lynch,
42 Corstorphine Hill Crescent, Edinburgh.
THIS situation gets more unbelievable every day. Conservative MPs in favour of Brexit almost every day refer to the legislative power of Parliament. Yet these same people ignore the fact that Parliament gave away its sovereign power by allowing a referendum, the results of which they say must become law. Surely Parliament does not have the right to give away power which it alone has the right to exercise. The failure of MPs on all sides to recognise this simple fact is at the heart of our current crisis.
Kenneth Roberts,
86 Larkfield Road, Lenzie.
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