We can easily achieve an economically sensible future – if we vote to reverse Brexit

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Theresa May holds a press conference at the Council of the European Union building on 20 October (Getty)

What sort of a democracy do we live in if a person of such status and knowledge as Mark Carney is verbally threatened with implications that he should lose his job because he disagrees with Government policies? What about when a politician starts enquiring about political aspects of university teaching? I, as a student of German history, shudder. But I will give Mr Heaton-Harris the benefit of the doubt. He was doubtless seeking help in finding a justification for Brexit. And he will need help. Ninety-nine economists in 100 agree with Mr Carney’s deep scepticism over Brexit.

The comments vary from the general “stupidest decision ever made” to specific analyses of the effect on internationally integrated “just-in-time” manufacturing systems, not forgetting the loss of financial passporting rights, open-skies agreement or access to research. Or exchanging 40 per cent of our trade – free trade – for complex WTO tariffs.

The right-wing press rails against overseas aid and migrant workers while ignoring our need for young workers to fill the vacancies, do the work, pay the taxes and balance out our age-dependency ratio. The main “public” justification for Brexit is patently false.

So what have we achieved so far? Brexit-generated devaluation and consequent inflation, hitting marginal incomes. The departure of migrant workers leaving companies desperate for staff; the departure of sections of international finance and banking, another loss to the exchequer; airlines moving away; investment stalling; fears and uncertainty over everything from harvesting our crops to having access to nuclear fuel.

Talks make no visible progress towards solutions to even the first of the problems. Even in Parliament the word “shambles” is recurrent, the Government is accused of total failure to understand business principles, the much-lauded trade “with the rest of the world” is reported to be declining, and so on for the past six months. The list of potential difficulties is endless – and all the Government can say is: “It’ll be all right on the day.”

For that day, businesses are begging for a “transitional arrangement” as near the status quo as possible. That can be easily achieved – it’s called staying in the EU.

Is there no one out there with the courage to stand up and say to the 39 per cent of the electorate who voted for it: look folks, this Brexit business is turning out to be very much against the economic interests of the country – it is best to forget the idea?

Sadly, that won’t happen, unless that someone can stand up against that powerful group of politicians who have turned Brexit into a matter of religious belief, in which all heretics whether bankers, economists, scientists, farmers or businessmen should be threatened with losing their jobs.

Mark Wydall
Stratford-upon-Avon

Why offenders need the right to vote – and to work

Incarceration serves as more than sufficient punishment for most offenders. One strategy of reducing the rate of recidivism is to bridge the gap between life inside and outside prison.

Lord Farmer’s recent report emphasised the vital importance of inmates keeping family ties. Giving prisoners the right to vote will also help strengthen the bonds between offenders and society thereby giving them further encouragement to lead law-abiding lives. However, the reported current proposal to limit voting rights to those serving 12 months’ imprisonment and who are on day release is too restrictive. The right to vote should be extended to the majority of the prison population. Further measures – such as giving prisoners work so that they can pay for their keep and so be able to financially provide for their families – should also be considered.

Cutting re-offending matters for it means less prison places are needed, thereby cutting expenditure. More importantly it means reducing the number of victims and enhancing the lives of offenders and their families. Too many people end up back in prison. It is time for change.

James Keeley
London WC1

Don’t fight medieval ideology with medieval ideology

Robert Fisk is absolutely right to criticise Rory Stewart and others for advocating the extrajudicial killing of UK citizens fighting for Isis (27 October). But what nobody seems to be saying is that we are responding to the mediaeval religious violence of the jihadists by effectively resuscitating the equally mediaeval concept of outlawry.

George Macdonald Ross
Leeds

Why pay MPs’ salaries at all?

In Saturday’s Letters page, Nigel Groom quite rightly posed the question: “Why are taxpayers paying for MPs to send letters for ‘personal research’?”

While I agree wholeheartedly with Mr Groom’s view, it does raise a somewhat larger issue of why we should pay MPs. This is a matter of honesty. In an age when it seems the average MP believes it is quite acceptable to say one thing and do another, and to make outlandish claims to support a party policy, or even just to provide policy-speak in reply to a simple question, why should we be paying these rogues’ salaries?

When Michael Gove stated on BBC Radio 4 (Saturday 28 October) that being interviewed by John Humphrys was “like entering Harvey Weinstein’s bedroom”, no one commented on the fact that he also mentioned lying politicians – where he seemed to normalise lying as an acceptable political tactic – despite the fact that these lies are made to the electorate; the same people these politicians are paid to represent and support.

So, does the electorate still believe the purpose of casting our votes is to decide who we wish to act in our best interest, and to best support the general safety and welfare of the nation, or do we simply think that we have an opportunity to reassure politicians that their self-serving behaviour is entirely acceptable, regardless of the damage they do to their constituents and to the nation?

David Curran
Middlesex

Speaking of international trade...

The Government’s trade minister, Greg Hands, is quoted as saying: “The Department for International Trade does not currently hold central data on the language skills of its workforce.” This admission is extraordinary; surely access to a wide variety of language skills is fundamental to the work of this department.

John Wilkin
Bury St Edmunds

Clearly Trump isn’t our only nuclear concern

Britain’s nuclear deterrent relies on potential aggressors never knowing when the 16 Trident missiles – each with 12 nuclear warheads – on a submarine might be launched.

That crew members of a nuclear-armed submarine were disciplined for taking cocaine adds a startling new unpredictability to the equation.

The fingers of Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump hovering over the nuclear button may not be the ones we should worry about.

John Doherty
Warwickshire

The captain and second-in-command of the nuclear submarine HMS Vanguard were relieved of their posts for conducting illicit sexual relationships with women on board.

Should it be renamed the HMS Jolly Rogerer?

Angela Polsen-Emy
Birmingham