THE Liberal Democrats’ policy of revoking Article 50 if they win a majority of seats in parliament ("Swinson accused of hypocrisy over poll pledge to scrap Brexit", The Herald, September 16) is undemocratic, as the chances of a one party winning a majority of votes in a General Election is almost zero. It’s only happened once, in 1931, since all adults got the vote in November 1918.

So they’ve promised to reverse a majority vote in a referendum if they get the largest minority of votes in an election, under a voting system which their party has rightly condemned as unfair in not making number of MPs elected proportional to votes cast for each party.

That’s irresponsible opportunism. Labour and the LibDems should be negotiating an electoral pact to maximise the chances of stopping a Conservative Party adopting Trump’s methods and the Brexit Party winning the next election and losing hundreds of thousands of jobs, plus lives, in a no deal Brexit.

Then hold a referendum on any new Brexit deal negotiated. Because claiming that the promises of “bound to give us a good deal” by both Leave campaigns in 2016 are a mandate for a hard or no deal Brexit, is like advertising a brand new car, then delivering a rust bucket that doesn’t look safe to drive, and saying “You agreed to buy it mate”.

Ms Swinson and the LibDems should also be apologising for their part in enforcing the bedroom tax, benefit caps, Universal Credit and arbitrary benefit sanctions on the disabled, the ill, the mentally ill, carers and the poor during the coalition; and making it party policy to vote in Parliament to reverse all such “reforms” in future, to ensure those who need help most don’t keep being pushed into poverty, cold, hunger, homelessness or suicide, as they continue to be under the current government.

Not that I’d trust LibDem promises on anything except opposing Brexit, since they broke their main election pledge in 2010, but there will be some seats that Labour has no chance of winning which the Liberals could win from the Conservatives.

Duncan McFarlane, Carluke.

IF it did nothing else, the result of the 2017 EU referendum indicated widespread dissatisfaction with the current terms of the UK’s membership of the EU. In my view to deal with that Leavers want to get out of the EU completely so as to take back control and allow us to operate independently on a global basis, whilst Remainers favour the current trading benefits of staying in the EU whilst arguing for its reform.

To me the main difficulty with the Remainers’ position is their belief that somehow they can achieve serious reform of the EU. History indicates that any attempt for serious reform will fail, as witnessed by David Cameron’s attempt to do just that in the face of the EU’s determination to continue on its path for ever-closer union of its members, including the UK if it stays in .

A concern with the Leavers' position is the fear of short to medium-term damage of leaving to the UK economically and otherwise. This is especially so under a no deal departure. In the Yellowhammer document the Government set out what it believes to be the possible consequences, they emphasise in a worst-case scenario, of leaving without a deal. To Remainers this indicates a price too great to pay. The EU has said it is ready for a no deal Brexit but does not appear to have published its views on the possible worst-case consequences of that on its membership. Is it worried that publication of its concerns would stir up popular pressure for it to come to a deal with the UK?

I believe that most people are fed up with Brexit and want it concluded now one way or the other. To me it boils down to whether you believe as I do that as serious reform of the EU is necessary but impossible the UK must leave it, or whether you agree that the best interests of the UK lie in the ever-closer-union concept of the EU and therefore must stay in it.

Alan Fitzpatrick, Dunlop.

IN an earlier letter to The Herald I expressed my opinion on the folly of simple majority referendums, arguing that on matters of major constitutional change a two-thirds majority should be required. However, we now are where we are and I accept that, by a very small majority, the Leave vote prevailed. That is 48 per cent voted to stay in the European Union while 52 per cent voted to leave.

This was not a thumping majority or, as some would absurdly have it, “the will of the people”. This was a majority so slight that a swing of only two per cent would have produced the opposite outcome.

The question that should be asked is what proportion of those 52 per cent were hard Brexiters willing to contemplate a no deal Brexit. Not many I suspect. For those who argue that “we knew what we voted for” I would remind them of Theresa May’s truly fatuous answer when asked what Brexit meant, “ Brexit means Brexit”. Clearly she hadn’t a clue.

The Leave camp also attempts to take the moral high ground by invoking democracy as a justification for whatever steps it cares to take. However, democracy is not the dictatorship of the minority by the majority. Perhaps things look clearer when you express things in terms of fractions rather than percentages; roughly half voted Leave and half Remain. Extreme positions should not therefore hold sway and compromise is required.

Jim Meikle, Killearn.