After this election, the dignity of parliament must be restored

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A pro-Brexit activist (left) talks with an anti-Brexit demonstrator as they protest near the Houses of Parliament (AFP/Getty Images)

As this crucial general election approaches, let us not forget the urgent need to restore the dignity and authority of parliament, so that it is held in the highest esteem by the electorate.

This last session of parliament has been demeaned in the public eye as a result of the immature behaviour of members, lost tempers and self-appointed experts who act without regard for party policies or the wishes of the constituents who originally voted them into the chamber. Members of parliament should be role models for the community at large.

Reasoned debate is an essential part of parliamentary procedure, but the display of rancour that we have witnessed is not acceptable. The legislative procedure would be smoother and more efficient if attitudes were more mellowed.

John Cooper
Wilmslow, Cheshire

Trust and honour

“Untrustworthy” is the current buzzword used to attack Boris Johnson. Surely parliament breaking its solemn promise to honour the result of the referendum is as untrustworthy as it gets?

The majority of MPs voting for the referendum, and for triggering Article 50, was overwhelming. Even the Liberal Democrats had promised to honour the result.

David Simmonds
Address withheld

Brexit economics

Friday’s BBC head to head between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn was really depressing, with the usual parroting of well-worn slogans but no serious debate about the merits or otherwise of Brexit itself. This single issue alone will determine whether the country remains successful and prosperous enough to lay out the billions of pounds that both Labour and the Tories are either cynically or unrealistically promising to spend on a whole range of social priorities.

The Project Fear canard seems to have silenced any coherent debate about the fundamental economics of Brexit. Readers of The Independent, The Guardian, the Financial Times and The Observer will be familiar enough with the key industrial and economic arguments, but much of the wider public hardly seems to be aware of the basic economic criteria which should determine whether we remain in or leave the EU.

Gavin Turner
Gunton​, Norfolk

No return to union strikes

Is it not a bit odd for a leader to talk about bringing the country together when he based his campaign on being against bankers, billionaires and the establishment, and runs a party that stands accused of being riddled with antisemitism? If his idea of bringing it together is by forming trade unions, then expect a paralysed economy. I remember the miners’ strikes and the climate of fear and intimidation induced by the unions. I remember a taxi driver being killed by a piece of concrete thrown from a bridge. His crime? To be doing his job driving another man to work during a strike.

Even if younger persons don’t remember this, I’m sure they can see the chaos in France from strikes. No thanks. The way forward is a strong majority government committed to carry out the wishes of the people expressed in the referendum.

Pat Shaw
Stoke-on-Trent

Real change?

A Corbyn-led government would: allow secondary strike action, plunging our country into chaos, slash our defence capabilities and render our country unsafe, spend £196bn on nationalisation, sending our country bankrupt. Is this what he means by “real change”?

Steve Carvell
Sutton Coldfield

Election divination

Given the lack of accuracy of opinion polls for the last general election and the EU referendum, why would anyone take any notice of the latest ones regarding next week’s vote? You are just filling space with a guess. I have just used some chicken bones thrown in the air, the result of which will be just as accurate. If you require the result, please contact me.

Michael Pate
Preston

If...

Here in Great Britain, we have consistently chosen Rudyard Kipling’s “If” as our favourite poem. I read it again yesterday and was struck by the lines: “If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch”.

Over the past months, I have witnessed Jeremy Corbyn’s dignity and his unwavering moral compass in the face of a toxic, personally hurtful media onslaught. That “If”-like moral compass is what singles him out, and is the reason why he gets my vote.

Ruth Gould​
Ramsgate

Young minds, don’t be fooled

The concerning issue in this election is the potential for young voters to be taken in by the current leadership of the Labour Party, which has the frightening ability to make outrageous strategies sound plausible and outdated policies seem fresh and radical.

Of course many young voters will not be aware of the chaos caused by the strikes of the 1960s and 1970s, due to the leftist era, and Corbyn’s freebies such as broadband and tuition fees will attract the youth of today, not realising the fundamental structure of his policies would take us even further left into Marxist territory.

I also find Corbyn’s Brexit strategy worrying. As a resident of Northern Ireland I can bear witness to the uncertainty that the island of Ireland has suffered already from this headache, and his policy will extend the uncertainty for at least a further nine months.

If Labour’s second Brexit referendum returns a Remain majority, would Corbyn even stand by the result? Despite his apparent neutral stance we know he’s really a Leaver at heart, with a long history of opposition to the EU, and most of his manifesto policies would fall foul of EU law and regulation.

Clinton Humphris
Newry

A lesser of two evils

Our country faces a stark choice this week. One of two people will be prime minister by the end of the week. I can understand people who aren’t enamoured by either choice and may be trying to decide which is the lesser of two evils.

As an owner of one of Britain’s many small businesses, I can assure you that the single biggest impediment to growth of jobs and prosperity is the uncertainty we endured throughout 2019 due to the failure of our politicians to deliver Brexit.

I didn’t want Brexit in 2016, but I have complete confidence in our ability to “keep calm and carry on” and make a success of it. Brexit itself is not the issue anymore, it is the paralysis of our country that is the issue. We need to be allowed to get on, with minimum interference from our politicians and government.

So which is the lesser of the evils? It has to be the one that gives an end in sight to the Brexit uncertainty and does not plan large-scale state interference in business and national life. The choice could not be starker: a 2020 of hope and a chance to move forward and prosper, or a 2020 of continued uncertainty.

Nigel Hill
Swansea

In verse

Who should I vote for? An ode to this election:

The world is in a terrible state,
all because of a cruel human trait.
Acts of territorialism are given free rein,
“acceptable human behaviour”​ deflecting blame.
Trump, Putin, Johnson suffering genetic disorders,
Each one obsessed with controlling borders.
Then up pops Richard Dawkins’ unholy suggestion,
“mitigation of cruelty” truly answers the question.
Who should I vote for?’

David Parsons
Portsmouth

End of a political era

Donald Trump is destroying himself, let’s make no bones about it. Nancy “don’t mess with me” Pelosi is simply taking good and surgical advantage of the process all narcissists eventually go through. With Trump’s stupid behaviour, the question is why has it taken so long?

Back in the UK, Nigel Farage is completing his self-destruct process too. Like Trump, he is not being wiped out by opposition. Men like Farage only know how to break things and eventually that means themselves.

Toxic toddler number three, Boris Johnson, will destroy himself too. Wrecking is the only thing he knows. He has already made significant inroads into destroying the Conservative Party. His enablers know this – which is why they are keeping him from as many pre-election interviews as possible.

The big question is not whether we will eventually be rid of the current inexplicable crop of political narcissists, but how long it will take to recover from this blight?

Amanda Baker
Edinburgh

Climate in crisis

The EU this week announced that we’re heading for 3C warmer by 2100. A rise of 3C globally could mean up to 6C warmer in the tropics, leaving those regions lifeless, and perhaps 1C at the poles.

The IPCC warned that we have 12 years to save ourselves from catastrophe. We don’t have enough ice cover now to save ourselves and concentrating on reforestation without ending emissions and extracting will be merely feeding the blaze.

Shading our remaining ice from space and installing white roofs globally could help, but governments will need to invest trillions to immediately end fossil fuel use and switch to electrification, to remineralise and reforest the planet, if we’re to survive the way we live today.

Michael A McPhillips
Ballymun