No one has got what they wanted from Brexit – which is why we need a Final Say

Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

Since no one is getting what they voted for, and parliament cannot resolve Brexit, the only solution is to let the people decide (Reuters)

In response to your recent extensive coverage of Brexit, let’s consider the question: “Have you got what you voted for in the referendum?”

If you are a Remainer, the answer is easy: no.

If you are a Leaver, the answer is more complicated, but the answer is still no. You have not got what you voted for.

If you voted Leave, there were no “ifs” or “buts”; no “deals” or “agreements” on your ballot paper. Leave meant leave. Just walk away.

What the government is proposing is a fudge, because they know that just walking away is a hard Brexit and we now learn that would be a disaster.

A negotiated deal, based on the Chequers agreement or any amendment to it, is not workable because the EU and the UK both show every sign that they will not agree to it. Yet the government still feel they must pursue a Brexit deal that cannot be agreed as acceptable to both the UK and the EU.

Time is fast running out before we leave the EU on 29 March 2019 with or without a deal.

Since no one is getting what they voted for, and parliament cannot resolve Brexit, the only democratic solution is to let the people vote on whether to accept the final fudged deal or to remain in the EU.

Anthony Gledhill
​Leeds

Is it it possible to deliver a clean exit from the EU?

I’ll keep this short as I’m not sure this is the right channel to voice this.

I am a big supporter of your petition and I have signed it too. But I feel that some people are so defensive about a second referendum because they feel they are being asked the same question twice.

They have asked us if we want to have our cake and eat it. And Britain said yes. Now we have a cake but apparently we won’t be able to eat it. That’s subjective, some people might think we get crumbs, some people feel it’s one slice, but the truth is we certainly won’t be able to eat it all. So the question is “is this good enough for Britain?” If the answer is yes, then it’s a full circle closed and Britain had its say. We clearly know that the government is getting the best they can, so if the answer is no we can safely assume the project “have your cake and eat it” is undeliverable and therefore should be aborted.

The fact that it’s called a referendum shouldn’t drive people to say it’s anti-democratic. Actually, referendums are a democratic tool and we should all be proud we live in a country where we are allowed to have a say.

Carla Stimolo
Address not supplied

Here’s why we need to revamp early years learning

Eleanor Busby’s article on early years reading and speaking skills comes as no surprise and mirrors a decline in children’s physical readiness for school in terms of motor skills needed to support learning.

Perhaps the most worrying trend is an apparent lack of awareness among a new generation of parents facing demands and stresses at all levels of the social spectrum, of the importance of parental conversation, physical involvement and engagement with children in the early years and beyond to develop these skills.

Even education secretary Damian Hinds, speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, fell into the trap of suggesting that technology could be a substitute for or “complement” parental engagement.

Involvement with technology is not the same as one-to-one interaction. It is pre-programmed to respond in a limited number of ways; it does not “listen” to what the child has to say; it creates an environment of background noise which is detrimental to the development of listening skills; and attention and it does not encourage a desire to communicate with others.

Adult relationships suffer when there is a lack of engagement. Children are no different in this respect.

Sally Goddard Blythe, child development psychologist, Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology
Chester

In the past, children aged three years had a health check which included both physical health and development. The checks were done by GPs and community paediatricians. The majority of children had no issues, but the most common problems we found were with speech and language.

Following the assessment, children were referred to speech and language services, and would have helpful interventions for up to a year before starting school. However, a revised report by Professor David Hall, Health for All Children (aka the Hall report), a few years ago recommended stopping the universal three-year check in favour of targeted checks for families with problems.

Professor Hall felt that parents were best placed to know their children and would present them if there were difficulties. The report was happily accepted by the government and the routine three-year checks were abandoned. Those of us who had been seeing children under the universal programme predicted at the time that there would be problems.

Even the best parent cannot always know what a three-year-old should be able to say or what language they should have, if they have not had other children. So children are arriving in school having lost a possible year of intervention with a speech and language therapist, and having unclear immature speech or with significant difficulties in understanding or expressing language.

At the other extreme, Damian Hinds thinks it is a scandal that children are arriving in school unable to read. He seems to be suggesting that children should be taught to read at the age of three, so that they are reading at school entry just after they are four-years-old. Not all children are ready to learn reading at that young age, and there is the very real risk that they will feel a failure at the outset of their schooling, and have a real disincentive to try.

Lets concentrate on picking up children with speech and language problems, and leave learning reading until children are ready to do so.

Dr Audrey Boucher, retired GP
Basingstoke

The perfect Brexit metaphor

I wholly agree with Molly Goodfellow who says “Brexit is just impossible to satirise”, but I found that some of her metaphors did not resonate with a person of my age and lifestyle (I don’t watch Love Island nor Eurovision nor shop at any fast-food drive-throughs).

For me Brexit is like a giant pharmaceutical company that decides to design and make a cure for a common but non-life threatening ailment. They put their design ideas to a consumer focus group and roughly half of the group decide it might be a good idea. They spend the next two years testing, investigating the pros and cons and then analysing the results.

They discover that the new drug will be good for a select few (in the extended metaphor, they are called “hedge fund managers”) but in general will either kill or destroy the lives of the vast majority.

A few stubborn members of the focus group insist that the decision was made two years ago to make the drug and repeat phrases like “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” It is clear if the drug goes on sale the company will be broken – morally, spiritually and commercially bankrupt. Then, in the light of two years of testing and so on, someone has the bright idea to ask the focus group again...

Paul Spence
Wirral

The Tories are in cahoots with Steve Bannon – the media must take note

The media has received the news that Michael Gove, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson are in discussions with Steve Bannon – the US’s foremost racist politician – with apathy and disregard. Mainstream journalism seems indifferent to the fact that politicians in the UK’s governing party are consulting with a man who has told his followers to wear the label “racist” as “a badge of honour”.

But the idiotic calumny and self-evident absurdity that declares lifelong anti-racist Jeremy Corbyn an “existential threat” to Jewish people has been given prominence across the national airwaves and front pages.

With genuine racist and fascist movements growing across Europe, such political duplicity is criminal.

It undermines the struggle against the far right at exactly the moment it is needed the most.

Sasha Simic
London