How many people marched for a People’s Vote on October 20?

Your correspondent Judith Morris (Letters, October 26) says that: “By the Met’s own figures there were a maximum of 150,000 people at the rally... not 700,000 as put about by the organisers.”

I don’t know how she got hold of this information, when all the newspapers and broadcasters reported that the Metropolitan Police declined to estimate the numbers. But I wonder if she’s got the right figure.

We reached the march near Hyde Park Corner 15 minutes before it was due to start. Park Lane was already overflowing with people waiting to set off. Two hours later, with more arriving all the time, they were still waiting, so vast was the attendance.

All my experience suggests that this march was much bigger than 150,000.

Meanwhile, one Michael Goodman has made the following Freedom of Information request to the Met: “Can you please publish any data, information, or estimates you hold, or have communicated, about the number of attendees at the ‘Peoples Vote March’ in London on October 20, 2018.”

So with luck we may all know better soon. The Met’s reply is expected no later than November 20.

John Heawood,

Fulford, York

Protests weaken our position on Brexit

SO once again we have to suffer some rag tag bunch of undemocratic protesters clogging up the streets of York on one of the busiest Saturdays in November (People’s Vote March to be held in York, Press website, October 28).

I’ve lived all my life in York and the only people I need to represent me have been elected councillors and MPs - not York For Europe.

Who authorised this ill-timed protest? They should insist all protests are after 7pm, not on a Saturday (which is most people’s main shopping day) and are kept out of the city centre.

Do people not realise protests like this only weaken our Government’s position?

Brexit is real - no part time attention seekers will prevent it - and in the end our country will benefit greatly from ending our bondage to European barriers and opening us up the whole world again. We already have over £100 billion in potential trade deals with Canada, Australia and most importantly China, which dwarfs anything in Europe, where we actually have a trade deficit of £65 billion.

Ask yourself - what has the EU done for us? The answer mainly is over 40 years taken £500 billion out of our economy and spent it propping up a poor currency, supporting poorer nations (who technically didn’t even qualify as members of the EU) and deliberately not voting for us in song contests.

Eddie Vee,

Chancellor Grove, York