Vainglorious politicians are working hard to deny the result of the decisive 2016 British Referendum; having resorted unsuccessfully to threats, they are now offering bribes to recalcitrant Leavers in impoverished northern towns.

In defiance of the Referendum result and the subsequent national election, where he was elected on a promise to ratify the result of the Referendum, Richard Harrington our local MP feels that he has the authority not only to oppose the will of the people who elected him but also to threaten to resign, decreasing parliament’s already thin majority, if he does not get his way.

The potential prize for this betrayal of democracy must be very high. And indeed it is. Europhile politicians see a permanent future for themselves within the bureaucracy of a European super-state. Their justification for accruing to themselves so much power is yet another threat: the doom-scenario of global warming/climate change - despite the fact that the previous doom-scenarios, global cooling, acid rain and the expansion of the ozone hole, all came to nothing because they too were based on flawed and politicised science.

Politicians have neither the expertise not the authority to pick the winners, run economies or predict the weather. Trade is between businesses and individuals not between governments and their oligarchs. Tariff free, World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules already facilitate free-trade successfully across national borders. The only losers would be transnational corporations dependent on tax-payer subsidies and red-tape - introduced to restrict competition. The winners? Citizens, paying less for energy and therefore for their every-day purchases, the environment - and small, medium and start-up businesses who would innovate and expand brilliantly to fill the gap.

Prof Christine Wheeler McNulty

Oxhey