Brexit doesn't make me proud to be British

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A protester raises their fist in salute (Getty)

So the genie is out of the bottle and no plans for a re-referendum will ever change that. What a sad time for those, like me, who have loved and felt proud to be British. As a true Englishman I am diminished and what the likes of my lovely late Father would have made of the current situation is beggars belief. Oh that I could claim some other nationality now!

Paul Warren

Cumbria

Is Sturgeon losing control?

A non-SNP-backed 'March for Independence' happened in Glasgow this morning - is Nicola Sturgeon losing control of events?

Ms Sturgeon of course shares the demonstrators' objective to separate Scotland from the rest of the UK but not their sense of timing. The nationalist leader is a canny political operator. She knows another failed referendum will massively - possibly terminally - damage the separatist cause, plus she'll lose her job.

For Ms Sturgeon the journey to indyref2 is a tightrope walk. She must keep the increasingly impatient dyed-in-the-wool nationalists on side. The SNP owes its power to its unity in the face of a fractured opposition in Holyrood - plus she'll need her enthusiasts on board if or when the time comes to campaign.

Yet, if she's to avoid another defeat, she has to look beyond the flag waving diehards and listen to what most Scots want. And, as outrage at the 23 June vote fades, the majority, it appears, are increasingly pragmatic.

Yesterday's YouGov poll shows only 16% of us seeking another referendum before a UK-EU deal is done. We clearly don’t want to be rushed into deciding between the UK and the EU, before we know what’s on offer.

Buoyed up by social media, many of Ms Sturgeon's core supporters and even some SNP MPs believe they would comfortably win indyref2 right now. The wily first minister sees it differently.

Martin Redfern

Edinburgh

Trump is no serious politician

I can't stand Donald Trump. Every time he opens his mouth he makes a fool of himself.

Did the Republicans fail to offer anyone else who is decent enough to offer an alternative voice to the American people? Or perhaps they don't have anything else to offer except hate, division and building walls? Is that how they want to make America great again by creating an atmosphere of distrust, enmity and hate?

I can't believe anyone with a sound mind would vote for a belligerent man like Trump. I would rather trust a gorilla for president.

Abubakar N. Kasim

Toronto, Canada

Why Sanders fans are not obliged to vote Democrat

In the U.S., if you support labor unions, this is your election. Regardless of what major candidate wins, labor wins. NAFTA will effectively be replaced or watered down to a point where candidates like Trump and Sanders can no longer give stump speeches in front of factories that have literally been moved to Mexico. China’s special trade status will be obstructed or encumbered so that hopefully someday all the tiny American flags given out at ticker-tape parades no longer say “Made in China” on one of the white stripes. And of course, Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership will never see the light of day, now garnering less support among his party than the opposition.

However, I do not think that Clinton will necessarily gain Sanders voters for one specific reason. Sanders supporters were not necessarily pro-union or leftists. The only common vein all Sanders supporters shared was Social Liberalism. The vast majority of American voters, though they would not likely admit it, know nothing about economics. Political season is a time in which politicians explain snippets of economics to potential voters, and voters regurgitate these factoids back and forth among one another until only the good chunks remain. Some of it sticks with voters, and some falls away. In this election cycle, the salient points have been opposition to free trade agreements, and it really hasn’t mattered which party.

So what do Bernie Sanders supporters have in common? They are socially liberal to an extreme degree. The fact that Clinton was opposed to gay marriage and refrigerated Honduran children as a deterrent to immigration doesn’t sit well with them. The fact that Trump is pandering to the white, rural racists of our country doesn’t sit well either. But if anything is certain, these voters are up for grabs.

Trump rails against the invisible “other” of terrorism, but is for integrated bathrooms. Caitlyn Jenner and Trump's support for Planned Parenthood are just two examples. His daughter’s nod to fighting gender wage inequality and increased childcare access are two more.

Clinton has done a great deal of hispandering to try to win us over, but still comes off as the woman who probably shouts at her Hispanic cleaning woman. The fact that she chose a Virginian running mate for fears of losing the state, rather than a Latino, emphasizes her wait-your-turn type attitude to Latino voters who she expects to “vote democrat,” no matter what her historical stances were.

Why is this important? If someone were to try to capitalize on disenchanted Sanders supporters, they would find they need only jump the hurdle of social liberalism, and we would hear out any economic ideas they might propose. Romney is discussing supporting the libertarians. Bloomberg might have had a very successful run as a socially liberal, pro-business with noblesse oblige candidate. Jill Stein is courting the conspiracy crowd who could really end up voting for anyone, even blank ballots.

The common thread is that Sanders supporters will hear out any economic strategy so long as your social liberalism is verified.

Frank P. De Paula, M.D.

New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A.