We marched against the Iraq War and nobody listened. The same is happening with Brexit

Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

The current political situation reminds me of the lead up to the Iraq War. There were huge demonstrations and people from all walks of life explaining why it was the wrong thing to do. Did the politicians take any notice? No!

Again we are in the middle of a political crisis that will be detrimental to the country. There have been huge demonstrations and people from all walks of life explaining why it is the wrong thing to do. Are the politicians taking any notice? No!

Give us a People’s Vote.

Maggie LeMare​
Birmingham

The new reality

I think I’m beginning to understand Brexit. Apparently, parliament is sovereign but only if it obeys Boris Johnson’s orders.

Helen Bore
Scarborough

A new use for the high street

Don’t let the lack of church halls and the demands of school nativity plays delay a December election.

Nearly every high street in the country has a multitude of vacant shops where the landlords would be delighted to see a modest income.

Alastair Duncan
Bozburun, Turkey

A look in the mirror

The police think a Chinese gang called “Snakehead” “may have been responsible” for the deaths of 39 people whose bodies were discovered in the back of a lorry in Essex.

Actually, the “snakes” who created the conditions that led to the deaths of those desperate people are in a British criminal gang.

They’re called the Tories and they have spent years created a “hostile environment” against immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers and closing legitimate roads into the UK.

They have forced desperate people to seek alternative routes here, no matter how dangerous.

Last month, Boris Johnson told the Tory conference: “If you come illegally, you are an illegal migrant and I’m afraid the law will treat you as such. [...] We will send you back.”

At that same conference, home secretary Priti Patel bragged to an audience apparently drunk on xenophobia that she would end freedom of movement “once and for all”.

The 39 dead in the back of that lorry were murdered by inhuman, racist Tory policies.

The Tories are the snakes with blood on their hands.

Sasha Simic
London, N1

Salma Yaqoob is an LGBT+ ally

We are LGBT+ activists who know and have worked with Salma Yaqoob. We wish to explain why we back her campaign to be Labour mayor for the West Midlands Metro region and our outrage at attempts to smear her.

Her promotion of and participation in the annual Birmingham Pride strengthened its message of celebrating diversity and unity. It is a message she has taken beyond Birmingham, addressing countless community and campaigning events across the country.

As a Birmingham City councillor, Salma fought to put equalities for all at the top of the agenda. Not just in words, but ensuring effective measures in employment practice and other areas. She insisted on assessing the impact of council decisions on all minority or marginalised groups – well before the Equality Act 2010 made that a duty.

When fringe groups tried to spread homophobia in her own ward she was not afraid to challenge them, taking up the argument at public meetings in front of hundreds of people. With facts and calm persuasion, she countered any bigotry and dispelled ignorance. It wasn’t the easy thing to do. Many politicians would fear losing some popularity and prefer to say one thing to one group, something else to another.

But her confident message of mutual respect and building upon our multicultural society proved hugely popular. It changed minds.

Far from hostility to LGBT+ people, Salma has worked across the spectrum to defend our rights, a particular inspiration for those of us who are also from African Caribbean and Asian communities. We need such people in elected office, representing Labour. Salma’s effectiveness and ability to champion the oppressed won her numerous plaudits when she effectively tackled Ian Duncan Smith on Question Time over his inhumane universal credit system.

As LGBT+ campaigners, some of us for decades, we know that smears not only fuel Islamophobia, they also damage the cause of LGBT+ rights – which are not a football in someone else’s political game. Such targeting of a Muslim political figure is plain wrong. Smearing them for stereotypical views they don’t hold is an outrage. It divides communities where we need to bring them together.

We are backing her and ask others to do the same. If you decide otherwise, do it on the basis of democratic debate and real political issues, not dangerously divisive smears.

Owen Jones, writer and journalist
Lady Phyll Opoku, (personal capacity)
Pav Akhtar, director, UK Black Pride
Myriam Kane, Muslim LGBT+ activist, NUS Black Students’ Committee 2018-2019
Aaron Kiely, Waltham Forest Pride co-founder (personal capacity)

Sometimes control is good

According to an article in the media, it is reported that Meghan Markle is right that the British stiff upper lip is “internally damaging”.

How on earth do they think that doctors and nurses, all emergency workers, medical people, social workers and care workers deal with harrowing and dangerous situations?

I was employed as a local government social worker for over 30 years and became a troubleshooter for the department. I used to be sent out to deal with problems where other social workers had “encountered problems”. Seniors would ask me to please take over an interview with a certain social worker’s client as that particular social worker “could not face aggression” or that they found their client to be “such an evil person” that they (the social worker) were afraid of losing their temper. I could not understand the latter as one of the first rules of being a social worker is “controlled emotional involvement”. As for the former, I wondered why they were in the job at all.

Barbara MacArthur​
Cardiff