First Boris Johnson calls Jeremy Corbyn ‘a big girl’s blouse’. Then he calls David Cameron ‘a girly swot’. Now he tells Corbyn to ‘man up’ and fight him at the polls. You can expect such sexist twaddle in a boys’ changing-room. In grown-up politics, you shouldn’t.

I am surprised that female voters can even consider supporting a Prime Minister who treats women with such obvious contempt.

Jeremy Corbyn has many and obvious shortcomings, but even he is preferable to an overgrown adolescent chauvinist with too much testosterone.

Peter Hollindale,

Grange Garth, York

These politicians couldn’t control anything

WE do not need a formal poll of the British public to be aware that the current majority opinion is that British politicians have proved to be incompetent in their handling of the action needed to translate the Brexit vote into legal reality.

Why, it is asked, cannot the Westminster Parliament just have the UK crash out of the European Union, as the referendum implied that it could?

Bearing in mind that the referendum result itself reflected a widespread belief that the negotiations with the EU and its member states conducted by Prime Ministers Heath, Thatcher, Major and Blair and their cabinets, did not serve British interests, what benefit do Brexiteers see accruing from a government - of British politicians, in whom they have no faith - ‘taking back control’?

I have been involved in politics all my life, seeing it as offering the means of enacting laws to bring about the progressively just and compassionate society, nationally and globally, for the benefit of all, which my faith calls me to seek and support.

I cannot think of any way in which membership of the European Union has prevented British politicians from continuing to take action to achieve that ends.

Maurice Vassie,

Deighton, York

No one voted for a ‘Disunited Kingdom’

IN 2016 a small majority of voters agreed that the United Kingdom leave the EU.

No one voted for “Brexit”; they voted only to leave the European Union. There was, and is now, no consensual understanding of ‘Brexit’.

We now have a deal from which Northern Ireland and Scotland dissent. Despite that clear dissent, “Brexiteers” are planning to take a Disunited Kingdom out of the European Union.

Was disunity “the will of the People?” It was certainly not on the ballot paper.

Our democracy requires representative Parliament; the House of Commons is “the People’s” principal defence against all autocracy and anarchy.

Parliament was given an impossible task. Long excluded from discussion by the executive, their “indecision” is that of a fragmented Britain.

MPs are not to “blame”. Our present fragile Constitution, enabling a balance of power, and our freedoms, certainly needs to be reconsidered, but in an orderly and agreed process.

Parliament represents us. What is the will of the People they represent? Did taking back control of our borders mean those of Scotland and Ireland too? That certainly wasn’t on the ballot paper in 2016.

Peter Doble,

Huntington, York

Please just decide and end this uncertainty

HOW very disappointing it was to see that the SNP want another referendum on independence. At least they have the honesty to call it a ‘second referendum’ and not try to disguise it as a ‘people’s vote’.

I sometimes wonder who voted in the Brexit referendum – were they not people? And why hold a referendum if we are going to ignore a result that the powers that be don’t like? Do we go on with another, and possibly another, until we get the ‘right’ result?

I so agree with Phil Shepherdson, it has been Brexit, Brexit for the last three-and-a-half years. I wonder if the current polarisation, confusion and anger would have been less if we hadn’t been force fed endless comment and argument for over 1,000 days since the British people gave their answer.

What we need now is someone strong enough to cope with the inevitable criticism and unpopularity, cease dithering, make a decision, and end this harmful uncertainty.

Pamela Brown,

Goodwood Grove, York