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The real treachery

Bill Williams describes the decision by Parliament to stop a no deal Brexit as an “act of treachery”, (SA, September 6).

I would remind him that prior to the referendum, the Leave campaign said that we would secure a free trade agreement with the EU before leaving.

Michael Gove even went so far as to say that we wouldn’t trigger Article 50 until a deal had been agreed.

I am sure that a good many of the sheep farmers and workers in export manufacturing, such as automobiles and aerospace, took that assurance at face value when they voted to leave.

In my view to crash out without a deal would be by far the greater treachery.

Don Reeve, Horder Mews, Old Town

Stocking up on beans

Full page ads, with large letters, saying, ‘Get Ready For Brexit’(SA, September 4 and 5).

And it means what?

Pop over to Asda and stock up on baked beans or wait 25 years, by which time, the real cost of this lunacy will begin to be apparent to even the most committed Brexiteer? Anyway, now with £100 million pounds worth of really helpful advice like this, I for one, feel so much better about Brexit!

Des Morgan is regularly and quite rightly critical in these columns of civic profligacy - worthwhile investment Des?

John Stooke, Havisham Drive

No respect for law

These are truly extraordinary times for our country, Parliament and the Conservative Party.

This week saw Dr Phillip Lee MP cross the floor to join the Lib Dems from the Tories while the Prime Minister was speaking.

In doing so he ended Boris Johnson’s majority in the House of Commons. That had already been slashed by the arrival not long before of the Lib Dem Brecon by-election winner, Jane Dodds MP.

Dr Lee was the second former GP to leave the Conservatives to join the Lib Dems. The House of Commons Chair of the Health Committee, Dr Sarah Wollaston MP being the first. Both recognise the disaster that Brexit brings to our NHS as much need EU doctors, nurses and other staff return home.

Not satisfied with losing Dr Lee, Johnson expelled 21 Conservative MPs. They had joined the all-Party “rebel alliance” advocated by Lib Dem Leader Jo Swinson to stop the madness of a no deal, crash out Brexit without installing Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister.

Among those MPs expelled were Winston Churchill’s grandson, two former Conservative Chancellors and many other One Nation Conservative moderates. This purge was backed by our local Brexit fanatic, James Gray MP.

Now two of Johnson’s brand new Cabinet have walked away. They include his own brother and former Home Secretary Amber Rudd MP.

The former must be the first political resignee that wishes to spend less time with their family‎. Dr Lee’s arrival with the Lib Dems was rapidly followed by two former Labour MPs, Luciana Berger and Angela Smith‎.

They are now reunited with Lib Dem Business spokesperson Chuka Umunna MP. Four new Lib Dem MPs in as many days.

The week ended with a British Prime Minister threatening to disobey the law of the land, having already cynically used serving police officers as the backdrop for a political stunt.

Something no serving Prime Minister has ever done.

No wonder 30,000 people have joined the Lib Dems over the summer with more finding their true political home everyday.

They are most welcome. Boris Johnson’s reckless disregard for Parliament and lack of respect for the rule of law is not.

Dr Brian Mathew, Liberal Democrat Prospective MP for North Wiltshire

Purge of the faithful

I am afraid that co-respondent K. Kane (SA, September 9) has misunderstood the basis of my letter. I was asserting that there may be many Conservative MPs who represent ‘stay’ constituencies when the Prime Minister is saying leave or get the sack. Who should they obey? They may choose to support the people who elected them arguing that the referendum was an advisory vote rather like an opinion poll, not binding, but useful to know how people are thinking. It would help them make their mind which way to vote in Parliament.

In normal circumstances this dilemma would be washed over by a party’s majority in the Commons. Unfortunately, Mrs May threw a Tory majority out of the window and the numbers have been going south ever since, hence we arrive at today’s situation.

An interesting course of events could follow with the PM resigning and handing the poisoned chalice to a coalition of opposition parties. Is a party better off in the long run to be unpopular in power or to sit on the side-lines throwing stones?

After the Purge of the Tory Faithful (sounds like a horror movie!) and loyal Conservatives expressing their displeasure by resigning so that the liberal conservatism of my youth has now disappeared. Tories of the Heath and Macmillan mould deserve better.

Bob Pixton, Abney Moor, Liden