Sir, – Ken Andrew (Letters, May 8th) cites Prof Sir John Curtice to support his view that the English local election results are not evidence of opposition to Brexit.
But Sir John Curtice's conclusion that the greatly increased votes for the Liberal Democrats and Greens at the expense of the Conservatives and Labour were protest votes is perfectly consistent with Chris Johns's view that they were intended to show anti-Brexit feeling ("Is Brexit breaking Britain?", Business Opinion, May 5th).
Something similar happened in and after 2003 when the Liberal Democrats, by opposing Britain’s joining the American invasion of Iraq, secured themselves additional votes at the expense of the Conservatives and Labour (both pro-invasion). Whatever about the absence of Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party from the contests – and Mr Andrew makes valid points about the size of its membership and the spoilt ballots – Mr Farage’s previous party, UKIP, was present in many electoral wards throughout England and, like the Conservative and Labour parties, lost votes and seats heavily.
The Brexiters are noisier than the anti-Brexiters. What is more indicative of British public opinion is that, on the evidence of the consolidation by “What the UK Thinks: EU” (a non-partisan body monitoring attitudes to the EU) of 75 polls on the question “If there were a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union, how would you vote?”, Remain has been ahead of Leave for the last 15 months, most recently 12 points ahead.
This surely explains the vehemence with which Brexiters oppose the idea of a confirmatory referendum on Mrs May’s deal or any other deal. – Yours, etc,
CJ WOODS,
Celbridge,
Co Kildare.
A chara,– I am really looking forward to seeing Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party romp home in the UK’s European elections.
The sooner he finds out that removing what you do not want does not automatically increase what you do want, the better.
How long will it be before some smart person works out that the World Trade Organisation is just another foreign power? – Is mise,
DERMOT
O’ROURKE,
Lucan,
Co Dublin.