Hugo Dixon of the People’s Vote campaign on the likelihood of another referendum and other readers on recent twists and turns in the Brexit saga

It is unclear why Matthew d’Ancona thinks an election is more likely than a people’s vote if MPs reject the miserable deal that Theresa May is concocting (Logic points to a people’s vote. Instead, political collapse looms, 12 November). The Tories would be mad to call an election because they would be split from top to bottom over what to do with Brexit, the most urgent issue facing the country – and would therefore be heading for a terrible defeat.

And unless the government wants an election, there won’t be one. Boris Johnson, Jo Johnson and the DUP may fume about the deal the prime minister brings home, but none of them will join Jeremy Corbyn in a vote of no confidence against her. In the circumstances, a people’s vote is much more likely. Even the leader of the opposition will eventually come round to the idea.

Hugo Dixon

Deputy chair, People’s Vote, and chair, InFacts

• The prime minister deserves more credit than she gets. Deliberately engineering a Brexit deal that will be rejected by parliament will lead to a second referendum that will deliver a remain result. She planned this all along. Pure genius.

Martin Fowkes

Bourne End, Buckinghamshire

Brexit deal: Labour, Tory Brexiters and DUP line up against May – Politics live Read more

• Re Polly Toynbee’s article (One day we’ll wonder how these fanatics seized Britain, 13 November), there is no need to wonder: just look at the outpouring of the rightwing press for the last four decades, from the Sun’s “Up Yours, Delors!” to the Daily Mail’s “Crush the Saboteurs”, via anything written about the EU by Boris Johnson in the Daily Telegraph. Rafael Behr’s “Russian trolls” (Opinion, 13 November) were simply pushing against an open door.

Derrick Cameron

Stoke-on-Trent

• Polly Toynbee asks why Theresa May triggered article 50 with no plan. In truth, May left it until the very last minute to trigger the two-year process of article 50. She could not allow Brexit to be any later than the end of March 2019 because, from 1 April 2019, the start of the UK’s fiscal year, the EU’s anti-tax-avoidance directive (2016/1164) would apply to British citizens and institutions.

Alan Page

Stirling

• Interesting choice of word by Theresa May to describe the state of the Brexit negotiations (Time running out as May claims Brexit negotiations in ‘endgame’, 13 November). I wonder if she is familiar with the Samuel Beckett play of the same name, which posits that life is absurd, farcical and irrational. Brexit, anyone?

Mike Pender

Cardiff

• You report (Blow for May as another Johnson quits over Brexit, 10 November) that Jeremy Corbyn told Der Spiegel that Brexit can’t be stopped, saying to the German newspaper: “The referendum took place. Article 50 has been triggered. What we can do is recognise the reasons why people voted leave.”

Am I really the only person who would prefer Jeremy Corbyn to work out rather urgently why so many of us voted remain?

Angus Doulton

Bere Ferrers, Devon

• Jeremy Corbyn’s unwillingness to stand against Brexit is, in my view, unforgivable. Like many, I’ve tried to find a workaround so I can accept his obdurate refusal to speak out. But I can’t find a way to overlook his shameful non-stance against this disaster.

No matter what strategic reasons are given, like not alienating Labour Brexit voters, especially those in less affluent areas, or holding out for a general election after everything falls apart, they do not justify his stubborn inability to resist an action about to destabilise the UK.

Polly Toynbee suggests it’s his 1970s Brexit self at work. That’s the problem. Not changing your mind in 50 years is less a strength than a sign of blinkered inflexibility. Times have changed and Corbyn’s Brexit blindness demonstrates how little he understands contemporary realities.

Rose Levinson

London

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