Sensible MP has a conscience

Reference the three letters attacking Dominic Grieve MP in the March 22 edition of the Bucks Free Press.

The man in question is a sensible, thoughtful MP who has a conscience. His position on leaving the EU was well-known even before the referendum and subsequent general election – in which he was re-elected, by the way. He sees leaving as a massively destructive step to the UK, resulting in our isolation, loss of power and influence at the top table of 28 nations and larger barriers in regard to free trade in the future and his efforts to prevent our leaving are perfectly understandable.

The good thing about the leave fantasy is that very soon, all the benefits will arrive, such as funding by the EU of mutually beneficial health and science projects starting to dry up. Hold ups at the borders affecting deliveries of fresh food and fruit, no benefits to Japanese car makers building here for export to Europe.

Loss of skilled workers from the EU damaging the health service, hospitability, construction etc. – many of these things happening already. Perhaps Mr Grieve found it difficult to understand why the UK should leave one of the largest free trade areas in the world, to do what exactly?

As the myth of “they need us more than we need them” explodes, the fun will start.

Michael Leslie, Seer Green

Let us have a People’s Vote

Your correspondents on the letters page on March 22 seem to have ignored the fact that Dominic Grieve is the representative of his constituents and not their delegate.

He is expected to vote in Parliament in accordance with his conscience and not by instruction. He has shown great courage in making clear his objections to the disaster of Brexit.

Let us have a People’s Vote to discover whether the 48 per cent opposing Brexit three years ago are now the majority of voters as indicated by recent opinion polls. Viva Dominic! 

Peter Harper, Chesham Bois

‘Troubles part of something bigger’

Dominic Grieve’s recent troubles at the Beaconsfield Tory AGM on March 29 seem to be part of something larger.

A Guardian report after the meeting quoted Mr Grieve saying the evidence was “pretty plain that he (Jon Conway) organised both bringing members into the association and also organised preliminary meetings prior to this AGM… for the expressed single purpose of coming to defeat the motion of confidence in me”.

Mr Conway denied this, saying he was ‘the only ex-UKIP activist who had joined the association”.  

The same Guardian report also quoted Mr Grieve saying “At the meeting there were a very large number of people… around 100 of whom I had certainly never seen or met before in my years as a member of parliament”.

Mr Grieve’s use of the words: “expressed single purpose” suggest that, once returned, Mr Conway made little secret of his aims at BCCA, and another report in the Guardian this week confirms this: a “leaked email … reveals he (Jon Conway) boasted of forming a 100-strong ‘breakaway group’ of members to ‘bring down’ Grieve” rather as if the figure of 100 strange faces mentioned by Dominic Grieve was highly accurate.

The Guardian said: “Concerns were raised about the ‘infiltration’ of Dominic Grieve’s local Conservative association by 200 new members in the months leading up to his attempted ousting… An email… within the association last July, headlined ‘suspicious new members’ said the ‘infiltrators’ had joined Beaconsfield Tories via the Conservative national website the previous week, and… BCCA had rejected some applications as ‘organised infiltration’.”

The email’s unnamed author said: ‘“I… seek your permission to reject those applications where our canvass returns indicate they are supporters of another party.

Some we must let through as there is no evidence to the contrary”. More worryingly the Guardian said: “Grieve was one of several Tory MPs targeted for deselection by Leave.EU, the organisation founded by the Ukip donor Arron Banks”.

Banks is of course the man who after being on the verge of bankruptcy in 2014 suddenly became the largest donor in UK political history, to UKIP, during the 2016 referendum. The source of his wealth is still uncertain and there have been repeated suggestions in the press that it was of Russian origin -

Banks was unable to account for it to, among others, Andrew Marr on TV, and as a result of information uncovered during the investigation into Leave.EU financing Banks was put under investigation last November by the National Crime Agency.

Another Guardian report, in February, described the activities of ‘Britain’s Future’ which has paid large sums of untraceable money to campaigns in individual constituencies, targeting Remain MPs like Dominic Grieve. The events at the Tory AGM on March 29 seem to be part of a larger pattern of untraceable money and manipulation of the democratic process.

It’s a shame that Dominic Grieve, and Beaconsfield Tories should be targeted by ‘dark money’.  

Lawrence Linehan, Wooburn Green

Brexiteers are divided

Further to the letter “MPs forgot what democracy means” (BFP letters, April 5), I would like to know what their definitions of “democracy” and “will of the people” are.

Taken at face value the result from those who actually voted was very marginal, which showed that the country was, and still is, very divided, but very little is shown about the fact that less than 40 per cent of the electorate (45.5 million) actually voted to leave the EU.

For such a monumental constitutional decision I hardly think that represents “the will of the people”. The “Brexiteers” are themselves are very divided as to what they want from Brexit and only now is it apparent what the issues are.

I certainly don’t remember anything about deals or the Irish border being mentioned at the time of the referendum. Had we had all these debates before the referendum things could well have turned out very differently.

As far as the MPs are concerned, it is very interesting that they are allowed to change their minds on how they vote but the “people” are not. What price “democracy”?

D. W. Abbott, Loudwater