Nick Clegg wilfully ignores one fact of political life (“You can stop Brexit by joining the Labour party – or even the Tories”, Comment, last week). Leave voters believe that the EU is a club like any other. Simply stop paying the subscriptions and you lose the benefits, but you stop having to obey the rules. So we can keep foreigners out and the rebalance of supply and demand in the labour market will force employers to pay proper British wages to proper British people for jobs from strawberry picking to neurosurgery, and all will be sweetness and light.

The government’s blundering negotiations are feeding Brexiters’ fury and conspiracy theories that the whole thing is a Euro-establishment betrayal. The remainers’ mantra of “it’s the economy, stupid” doesn’t address the rejection of politics-as-usual by people who don’t live their lives at the macroeconomic level, and wheeling out plutocrats and bureaucrats to give the big business and Brussels case for it is worse than counter-productive.

In such a fervid climate, calls to go on voting until you get it right will just stir up hostility and xenophobia.

Nik Wood

London E9

Nick Clegg is invariably a powerful advocate for a united Europe and for stopping Brexit, but the key message in his latest foray into the field is based on a completely false assumption.

The error is to believe that by joining a party you thereby have influence. In fact, perhaps perversely, by signing on and thus signalling your continued electoral support, you reduce your influence and do not have to be assuaged. Clegg forgets the cardinal rule that the only thing that frightens Conservative and Labour politicians is the fear of losing their seats.

The biggest impact that all those who support a united Europe can have is to join the only party that resolutely believes in the UK remaining within the EU. A massive surge in Liberal Democrat membership, Liberal Democrat electoral support in the opinion polls and in byelection seats gained would terrify both parties. Nothing else will.

Michael Meadowcraft

Leeds

It’s a great pity that Nick Clegg didn’t mention the one issue that could make MPs from both remain and leave constituencies vote against a Brexit deal (or no deal), ie allowing immigration controls in the EU.

This is a strange omission, since earlier this year he told Andrew Marr that politicians across the EU were now calling for a change to freedom of movement and that there was scope for a Europe-wide approach to achieving this. Were this shift to become increasingly evident, it could then allow Jeremy Corbyn to become overtly anti-Brexit, since realistic fears of losing remain seats at the next election would be mitigated. Those who don’t want Brexit should therefore not just follow Nick Clegg’s advice to influence political parties here, they should also urge their European contacts to push for such a change.

For those Labour supporters still calling for the maintenance of free movement – the opposite of what the majority want – they should ponder how this would give a desperate and vulnerable Tory party the ability to mount a successful campaign hammering “open borders Labour”.

This could help ensure a Brexit majority in any parliamentary debate and indeed the possibility of their eventual election victory condemning the rest of us to a Conservative “race to the bottom Brexit” and interminable austerity.

Colin Hines

Author of Progressive Protectionism



Twickenham