We are told this election is about Brexit. Shame on all of us if it is

We are being told that this election is about Brexit. Well, shame on us all if it is.

Brexit is about getting Brexit done, or so the Tories and the right wing press have framed it. What country does that at the expense of its weakest and most vulnerable? Millions of sick and disabled people are literally living in fear of another five years of a Tory government. They fear they may not survive it. Many have created posters of their experience and have put them up at bus stops or in windows.

As a country we have stood aside and looked on as 130,000 people suffered early deaths as a result of austerity. A million people now use food banks, many of them the working poor in lieu of a functioning welfare state. The Department for Health continues to find terminally ill claimants fit for work, universal credit is calculated cruelty and the one group who suffer most in all of this is children.

By Christmas Day, 135,000 children will be homeless in the UK. An increase of 7,000 in two years. Over 4 million children now live in grinding poverty and thousands of children use foodbanks, have no winter coats, do not celebrate their birthdays, do not eat fruit and veg because their parents cannot afford it, live in fuel poverty so go to bed cold and wake up cold, and have no outdoor play area.

All this and so much more, and it will get worse under a Johnson government because we already know that his manifesto is business as usual. Still, who cares as long as Brexit gets done, right? Margaret Thatcher, who said that there is no such thing as society, only men, women and children, would be so proud of what her ideology has achieved.

Julie Partridge
London

The argument that we just need to “get Brexit done” is total – and dangerous – nonsense.

Anyone who says, “I voted remain but now we need to move on and put an end to the uncertainty” is presumably now happy to see Scotland break from United Kingdom. Happy for the Troubles to flare up once again in Ireland.

They are content to see prices go up dramatically, and empty shelves in the shops. They’d enjoy seeing Kent turned into a lorry park. They wouldn’t mind if legislation protecting workers’ rights, food standards, and health and safety, were dropped so that bosses and shareholders could cream off bigger profits.

They’d shrug their shoulders as foreign investment dried up, and talented scientists and hard workers moved abroad to escape a xenophobic climate they helped create.

Nobody who really cares about the future of the UK wants to get Brexit done.

Richard Walker
Malvern

In one of the understatements of the campaign, Jo Swinson admits “victory is unlikely”. Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she added: “The most likely way we can stop Brexit is through a people’s vote and the Liberal Democrats have led the campaign for a people’s vote for three-and-a-half years.”

As stopping Brexit is her stated priority, why then did she allow her hatred of Jeremy Corbyn to get in the way of joining all opposition parties in the attempt to call for a vote of no confidence in Johnson’s government, so fulfilling her wish?

She claimed they “didn’t have the numbers”, but she let personal animosity rule out the possibility of Corbyn’s plan succeeding: to lead a temporary government offering a second referendum. She is now unlikely to survive beyond the general election results.

Eddie Dougall
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

Hannah Fearn’s letter offers a welcome wider view of the election campaigns currently stuttering to a welcome end. She is wrong to suggest that the NHS and Brexit have been in any way properly examined though.

There has been very little true debate about any of the vital issues of our time from the main parties. The success of the Brexit movement has depended on a small number of simplistic slogans which capitalised on the disappointment of large swathes of disengaged communities and few bigots.

The benefits of Brexit continue to be expressed in only the most vague and abstract sound bites which have echoed across the last three years. The Brexit politicians airily pronounce them and their deceived supporters echo them back on a loop. Only forensic scrutiny, and possibly, “antiseptic light”, are antidotes but a palatable format for this has not been found. Remain leaders have seemingly lost faith in rational argument and who can blame them?

Elsewhere, Matthew Norman wisely calls for the fight back to begin immediately after the election but this current populist, superficial and, let’s face it, dishonest political strategy sweeps away all moral high ground in its path. This is even more disturbing than austerity and Brexit together because it will come to stain every aspect of public life into the future. So we need Hannah’s antiseptic light and Matthew’s fight back more than we know. Otherwise this is only the beginning of the social and political nightmare with which we may be faced.

David Lowndes
Soberton

Again, Nicola Sturgeon has reiterated that Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn are not fit to be prime minister. President Trump has been assessed the same way. Declaring leaders unfit to govern seems to be her default position.

At the end of this election campaign the social-justice and progressive self-righteousness of the first minister is truly unbearable.

It would be easier to ask the first minister who is fit to govern.

I’m sure allegations of fitness to govern could be levelled at senior SNP MPs with many of them being embroiled in scandal, financial or otherwise.

Unless you agree with the narrow and singular vision of the SNP, then you are just another shade of Tory and if the leader of your chosen party is unfit to govern according to the first minister of Scotland, then what does that tell us about her opinion of those who vote for them.

David Bone
Girvan, South Ayrshire

One of the most momentous elections in our nation’s history is almost upon us.

While many vital issues such as health, education, transport and climate have rightly attracted much attention, I feel we are in danger of missing the real challenge to our nation and way of life.

The leftward lurch proposed by Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Momentum etc. is a grave threat to our country. State control of industry, infiltration on company boards, removal of choice in education, and appropriation of assets are all features we have seen historically in communist countries. They have certainly not caused either economic prosperity or increased care and compassion for their citizens.

We need to wake up to this threat and ensure we give a clear working majority to enable Mr Johnson to complete his Brexit deal, break the deadlock and move this divided country forward. The rest of the world, both friendly nations and otherwise, are watching.

Michael Brown
Glasgow

The dream of a four day week appeals to every hard working person – work four days then have a three day weekend.

This seems like utopia until you think it through. Which sensible company is going to invest in a country where labour costs are 25 per cent higher?

This crazy proposal will mean job losses of a scale never seen in this country in recent times as all major manufacturing is moved overseas.

Add this to any business employing more than 250 having to give 10 per cent of the shares to the staff, it’s another reason to move.

The four day week will turn into no job at all for thousands before a year is past.

These reckless idealistic Labour dreams must be voted into touch before they wreck the country.

Graeme Melvin
Yeovil, Somerset