Letters: Brexit is being driven by the unscrupulous

Dr Waiton disingenuously bandies about terms like "political elite" and " anti-democrats" in a futile attempt to persuade the reader that Brexit is driven by the disenfranchised and not by unscrupulous politicians like Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson who utilise Brexit for financial and political gain. In truth, those who stand to lose most from the shambles of Brexit will be the impoverished and the desperate. This will be a harsh reality that that Dr Waiton and his like fail to realise or understand, disconnected as they are from ordinary people's existences.

His faux-academic justification for his Brexit crusade ignores the present reality. Our economy has already been damaged by the Brexit process and all reputable studies predict a sharp economic decline over the next 15 years, regardless of whatever type of Brexit we are finally stuck with.

Contrary to what Dr Waiton believes, a second referendum is fully justified. John Maynard Keynes said: "When the facts change, I change my mind." The facts are that Brexit in any form will visit lasting social, political and economic damage on the UK.

Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are incapable of delivering a pizza, never mind a Brexit deal that will stabilise the country. Even following their disastrous showing in the English local elections, where most voters supported Remain parties, they choose, malevolently or otherwise, to interpret the result differently.

Standing for the Brexit Party in the forthcoming European parliamentary elections may mean that you are a hypocrite rather than a democrat. It does mean that you are seeking to represent a party with a narcissistic, specious, xenophobic and jingoistic leader, whose association with extremists like Steve Bannon make him somewhat questionable in an egalitarian sense.

It also means that you are rubbing shoulders with people and groups who wish to thwart the democratic process in their intolerant attitudes to minorities and to casual racist violence. It means, ultimately, that you are closer to the views and prejudices of fellow populists like Donald Trump than to those of social democratic leaders like Nicola Sturgeon and Vince Cable.

In the spirit of democracy, I wish Dr Waiton well in his desire to be elected to an institution he so obviously, but paradoxically, loathes.

Owen Kelly,

Stirling.

STUART Waiton characterises the EU, and its defenders, as a conspiracy of the elite, and the solution to be Brexit. I believe both analyses to be wrong.

The foundation of Dr Waiton’s case is his quotation from John Lilburne, that democracy depends on “free consent”. Consent is only free when it is honestly informed, and this was not true of the 2016 referendum.

Dr Waiton also announces he is standing in the forthcoming European parliamentary elections for the Brexit Party. This is led, and was conceived, by one who is himself a member of the elite, Nigel Farage, who, far from fearing democracy, happily exploits it.

Mr Farage, by his own admission, is less concerned with the truth than “how it is perceived”. When cornered irrefutably, he will either smile sheepishly and then immediately ignore the argument, or will take refuge in bluster, or worse, flat denial – even if this means stating the opposite of the truth. He knows few in his target audience are going to take the time and effort to question or dissect this.

Holding an audience by whatever means is his forte and what gives him his raison d’etre. It is this mirage of supreme and undentable self-confidence which appeals to the many people who are genuine victims of an inherently unfair system, which has much less to do with Europe than with the UK. They deserve a more worthy champion.

Rather than criticising the political class for fearing democracy, which is healthy, I believe we should be concerned about the destructive effects of those who exploit it, as Hitler did in the 1930s – which is one of the things the original EEC, for all its present faults, was designed to prevent.

Robert Bell,

Cambuslang.

STUART Waiton's article identified much of what gives rise to discontent with politics and politicians but his premise on what is non-democratic puts him in the same boat as the very people he is criticising.

Since the majority of the UK electorate did not vote to leave the EU the current crisis arises from our non-democratic system of using measurement against turnout. Further it is clear that 50 per cent+1 is not acceptable for a referendum result and we therefore need to raise the bar to at least two-thirds.

We should not forget that those who forced the referendum on us in the first place gained entry to Parliament via the non-democratic first-past-the-post system much loved by politicians.

Sandy MacSporran,

Ayr.

STUART Waiton's article was founded on a belief that the Establishment elite is guilty of undermining democracy by opposing the result of the Brexit referendum and quotes such disparate voices from Tony Benn to "the leveller John Lilburne", who as all Brexiters know was a left-leaning radical during the English Civil War, as support for his theory.

Throughout his argument he intersperses the word democracy. non-democratic or its derivation no fewer than 17 times as if to reinforce his point.

Unfortunately all this bluster is undone and shown to be a really waste of good print space to anyone who actually does the math, as our American friends would articulate it.

Of an electorate of around 46.5 million only 17.4m voted for Brexit; therefore a much larger 29m did not. Where is the lack of democracy in the stance currently taken? To those who say this is disingenuous because around 12 million didn't vote either way, the reply is quite simply that the fact remains that only 36 per cent voted to leave. The will of the people and the democratic process will only be truly achieved once it is compulsory to vote either in person or by post and yes, you have the democratic right to spoil your vote, but not to abstain.

James Martin,

Bearsden.