JEREMY Corbyn needs to wake up to the fact that losing Labour Remain voters and first-time voters (young voters being heavily pro-EU) by not backing a second EU referendum is a bigger risk to Labour’s chances of winning future elections than losing Labour Leave voters is. The votes of Remain voters who voted Labour in 2017 and of young and first-time voters are not guaranteed.

The opportunistic defection of several Blairite Labour MPs to form a new party (“Eighth MP quits party over Corbyn”, The Herald, February 20) should be a wake-up call too. They could not have done this without his failure to back either a second referendum or an extension of Article 50 to allow one less than eight weeks from scheduled Brexit date.

If he continues to let the clock run down, with no early General Election likely before Brexit, more New Labour MPs are likely to join them. By implementing Labour policy, as decided by delegates to party conference, of backing a second referendum if Labour can’t get an election before Brexit, and expelling more of the small minority of anti-Semites, he could head that possibility off, and avoid losing votes to all other parties that back another referendum.

The other parties wouldn’t need a large share of the vote for Labour to lose some marginals and fail to take others from the Tories. For Chuka Umunna and associates that would be considered a victory. They could blame a Labour election loss on Mr Corbyn and use it to try to retake control of the Labour Party, or to attract more defectors and supplant it electorally.

People seeing the actual EU deal likely to be a bad one, or none at all, combined with generational change in the electorate is shifting public opinion towards another referendum and Remain all the time. If Brexit goes ahead the shift in public opinion will accelerate as mass job losses and a recession result. This too could be used by the new “centrist” party and others to take votes from Labour.

Reduced tax revenues due to Brexit won’t help any future Labour government reverse Conservative cuts either.

Duncan McFarlane,

Beanshields, Braidwood, Carluke.

EIGHT Labour MPs have already gone and with many more reportedly on the brink of leaving, Labour is getting deeper and deeper into the political mire. It is not helped when the Labour leader in his speech on Tuesday yesterday warranted the crisis a dismissive half a sentence. The leadership and Momentum appear to think that if they say nothing the bullying and intolerance and anti-Semitism will somehow all go away.

The Stalinist elements in the party should be faced down. The Momentum tail wagging the Labour dog must stop. Forget the oft-quoted, hard left mantra of the “half a million members’’ – Labour voters at the last election numbered almost 13 million. The hard left zealot activists make up a relatively small minority of Labour support but have gained Stalin-like control. As a schism seems certain it may take the moderate sector of the party a decade to retain the trust of the millions who voted for them. A moderate Labour Party would at this time be looking forward confidently to a landslide victory.

Alexander McKay,

8/7 New Cut Rigg, Edinburgh.

NOW that three Remain Ex-Tory MPs have joined the eight Ex-Labour MPs, are we now to assume now that anti-Brexit will be the main focus of this new alliance with anti-Semitism taking a back seat? It was significant that Chuka Umunna, who has been acknowledged as the group’s leading light, in his post-resignation address talked more about Brexit than anti-Semitism.

I also wonder, as this group will now campaign for a second referendum on the basis that the original circumstances that the electorate voted on has changed, will now put themselves forward for by-elections on the basis that the original circumstances that the electorate voted for in each of their constituencies has now changed. I won’t hold my breath on that option.

Paul Lewis,

99 Guardwell Crescent, Edinburgh.

AS their parties are rocked by the dribbling away of Labour and Conservative MPs who are disenchanted with the leadership provided by both Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May, it is worth noting that there are no splits, no defections and no civil war within the third-largest party at Westminster, the SNP. And what a glaring contrast between the warm and positive welcome Scotland’s First Minister received during trade and cultural visits to the US, Canada and France, and the UK Prime Minister’s mortifying and repetitive to-ing and fro-ing to Europe, not listening to the emphatic “No” from European leaders, and stubbornly knocking on a door which has been repeatedly slammed in her face.

Ruth Marr,

99 Grampian Road, Stirling.

FOR the first time in my recollection the Secretary of State for Scotland was seen by the Prime Minister’s shoulder on television coverage of Prime Minister’s Questions today (February 20). David Mundell is a shy wee soul and could it possibly be that this exposure to the front bench is an admission by this UK Government that, possibly, just possibly, Mrs May has given credit to his umpteenth threat to resign if her actions continue to damage the Scotland he purports to represent?

KM Campbell,

Bank House, Doune.

WHAT an excellent and pertinent article from Kirsty Hughes ("The UK needs to halt Brexit and mend its broken politics", The Herald, February 20). There is little I would quibble about, and if anything, I am even more pessimistic about UK politics than she is.

Ideological splits in the two big parties should be followed by actual splits, but tradition, funding, fear and an obvious torpor will probably prevent real change. Beyond Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn what comes next? Reform of the voting system, constitutional change, Westminster political and economic hegemony: will any of that happen? I doubt it.

There is little interest down south about anything Scottish, Irish, Welsh, northern. Political journalism or comment give us few reasons to stay in the Union. Apparently the main one is economic, with British nationalists using the economy they have bequeathed on Scotland, to argue we should stay for more of the same. Really? Is that the best they can come up with?

You can see it in the criticism of Nicola Sturgeon for daring to go furth of Scotland to show Scotland off, and set up trade missions: England, France, Germany, the United States and the like Jeremy Hunt reportedly told the Japanese he was representing “England” on his recent visit, so why should Scotland not promote itself? David Mundell could do more, but is apparently on the verge of resignation ... again.

GR Weir,

17 Mill Street, Ochiltree.

Read more: Funding blow for breakaway MP group