IN HIS weekly column, Oliver Letwin justified his strong political theme by claiming that not to address the Brexit crisis would be ‘positively bathetic.’

Ironically, however, the lecture he then gave us upon the merits of Mrs May’s so-called deal and the virtues of compromise showed up the underlying bathos (even pathos) of his position.

It’s not a compromise, it is a fudge.

It is not pragmatic, it is partypolitically expedient.

We can’t evade the issue by feeling sorry for Mrs May – she got us into this mess by precipitating the post-Cameron election.

She is now trying to atone for this through her increasingly fixated and driven leadership.

Nor should we be bounced into accepting the proposed fudge through alarm at public boredom with Brexit.

If Parliament followed Sir Oliver’s argument, its worst consequence would be its disrespect for a true democratic process; that is, denying people and MPs the right, two years on, to make informed decisions on the complex but now concrete implications of what Brexit actually means.

In concluding his piece, loyal Sir Oliver plaintively addresses us as ‘dear readers.’

He is embarrassed, as he doesn’t really believe in what he has said. How could he? He knows that the compromise deal would be so much worse for the nation than the one we already have.

JOHN REYNOLDS,
Bridport