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Your support makes all the difference.These letters are in response to Final Say, our campaign launched last night for a referendum on the Brexit deal.
Congratulations on The Independent’s decision to throw its weight behind a campaign for a second referendum. May I suggest that a condition for the high-profile campaigners who will inevitably support you is that they promise to honour the decision? That may go a little way towards silencing those opposed who will accuse Remainers like me of wanting a third and a fourth vote until we get the decision we want.
Patrick Cosgrove
Shropshire
Your editorial calls for another referendum on EU membership as you wish “the people to have the final say”. The people had their say in 2015 when they voted in David Cameron’s government with their manifesto pledge to run an In/Out referendum. They voted to leave in that referendum in 2016.
They voted again little more than a year ago in 2017 for a government and opposition with manifesto pledges to leave the EU, with minor representation from those promising another referendum.
You have the prerogative to campaign for whatever cause you see fit. However, please drop the pretence that you wish to hear from the people when they have spoken clearly and consistently in each of the last three years but delivered results that you do not like.
Thomas Quinn
Manchester
We are already feeling the detrimental effects of political indecision and a referendum would return the simple choice of stay or leave to the people. This would, I think, overwhelmingly reverse the ill-considered result of the first referendum.
What do we lose by leaving and what do we gain by staying? We would lose our status on the world stage politically and our membership of one of the world’s largest trading blocks. We would gain the vague possibility of increased trading agreements with non EU nations.
The effect on jobs would be immediate and in the long term devastating. We are now more informed and are much less likely to be misled by misinformation and lack of facts as we were in the last referendum. Let the people have the final say on what is one of the most important decisions in the country’s history.
Colin Davies
Address supplied
I applaud your campaign for a second referendum. The need for it becomes ever more desperate.
One thing that bothers me is that your campaign will be visible to only your readers. When buying an actual newspaper at a newsagents, buyers tend to read the headlines of all newspapers on display. Your headlines can’t be seen that way. What can you do to promote awareness of your front page on a daily basis? Electronic ads perhaps which could conceivably pay for themselves through increased online subscription?
I hope you can find a solution to this as there is much worth reading in The Independent.
Joe Hennessy
Faversham
Just because parliament might decide to hold a referendum does not mean people can be forced to vote. Suppose the Leavers decide on a boycott campaign because they see this as another manoeuvre by the “elites” to deprive them of their success in the first referendum?
This is hardly the opportunity to bring the country together for a final say as you naively suggest. Just a recipe for more mayhem.
Lucy Purdy
London
“The Independent today launches a campaign to win for the British people the right to a final say on Brexit.” This is good news. But remember 100,000 people recently marched in London in support of this – the campaign is well under way and growing in stature week by week.
Duncan Fisher
Crickhowell
In reference to The Independent‘s opening article to its campaign for a new referendum on Brexit: I for one, as a non-qualifying independent overseas resident (with links to the UK), certainly see and would agree with the three reasons given that the UK population should be given the chance for an informed decision with facts on the table.
However, what has always puzzled me is how such a huge decision was ever left to a simple majority. Surly something that will affect all citizens and business for generations to come (indeed much more than today’s citizens of mature age for example) should be supported by a greater proportion of the population than just 50 per cent.
Scott Peacock
Stavanger, Norway
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