The Reader: Back Lib Dems to steer the UK away from Brexit

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Victorious: Lib Dems, including winning candidate Sheila Ritchie and Scottish leader Willie Rennie, could be the party for anti Brexit voters
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28 May 2019
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The Brexit Party is nothing more than Ukip mark two and will fade just like Ukip did.

The problem we have is that far too many people just do not realise the importance of our European Union membership.

That message has to be got across: to avoid Brexit. And my suggestion to achieve this is quite simple. All Remainers, whether they belong to a political party or not, must get behind the Liberal Democrats. Both Conservative and Labour MPs and councillors need to jump ship. That would bring down the present Government and change the numbers within Parliament.

It would force a general election and, based upon the recent results, the Lib Dems could and should do extremely well.

That has to happen now, before we leave the EU at the end of October, or we have to seek an extension. Better still, revoke Article 50 and we will get that general election.

What is for sure is that we cannot keep treading water.
Richard Grant

EDITOR'S REPLY

Dear Richard

This newspaper wished the Lib Dems well in the European elections. I don’t think, as you suggest, that they are about to become the dominant force in British politics but I do think they can have a decisive say over its future direction.

If I were a Tory MP in most of the marginal seats facing the Lib Dems, I’d know backing a no-deal Brexit could finish me off locally. Unless the Tories were to replace these losses to the Lib Dems with big gains from Labour, which looks unlikely, that is the end of their Commons majority. But here’s a contrarian thought: perhaps a future Tory PM could make the bold, generous offer of a referendum on Brexit to win grudging Lib Dem support for their government. That could now be the only way, looking at the parliamentary maths, that the Tories could stay in office. And paradoxically, a Tory leader might find it easier to promise a referendum than Jeremy Corbyn.

George Osborne, Editor

Now ban more single-use plastics

The Government’s ban on the sale of some plastics will undoubtedly be welcome news to Londoners who have become increasingly concerned about the deluge of waste making its way into the Thames, the capital’s other waterways and the world’s oceans.

However, both ministers and producers need to put their money where their mouths are by banning other single-use plastics that cause far more pollution than straws, cotton buds and drinks stirrers do.

The elephant in the room remains disposable coffee cups: in Britain we use seven million of them every day — that’s 2.5 billion every year — and very few of these are recycled. The Government has not yet brought through any policies that can tackle this.

While their recent proposals — to introduce restrictions on plastic packaging and create a deposit return scheme — are welcome, it’s clear that the Government could go a lot further still.
Leonie Cooper
London Assembly Member, Labour

Barracks sale was a very shrewd deal

Jonathan Stone in his letter [“Chelsea Barracks sale was bungled”, May 23] criticises as “feckless” the Ministry of Defence disposal of Chelsea Barracks for close to £1 billion in 2007, a record-breaker at the height of the property boom.

Twelve years on, the gross sales outcome might be £3.5 billion but the net proceeds will be a fraction of that after all the costs come off the headline figure. Walking away with an upfront payment of close to one third of the eventual outcome looks like a pretty good deal.

Given that the development costs would be around a third, 12 years ago the government managed to get about half of the net proceeds.
Nick Sutcliffe

Judith Kerr, the purr-fect writer

It was heartbreaking to hear that Judith Kerr has died aged 95 at her home in Barnes. She wrote The Tiger Who Came To Tea and the semi-autobiographical When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit trilogy, but it was her tales about ditzy Mog — every domestic cat that ever was — who started my and many other children’s lifelong affinity with the world’s purr-monsters. Now she has joined Mog — who she killed off in 2002 — in the Elysian Fields. Her books and pictures will delight future generations.
Mark Boyle

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