• I FEEL we are not participating in a democratic process but functioning as automata, voting for a political system little more a rubber stamp for the executive and institutions of state, corporate benefactors to the administration.

The Labour Party certainly does not represent organised labour or the working classes, it’s purely an alternative to the traditional Tory establishment.

The political ideologies of all the main parties are virtually identical: monetary regulation under fiscal austerity, while the chimera of parliamentary institutions are a cover for an entrenched ruling class, political and economic. This is the real betrayal of those who pioneered the franchise.

I personally have only exercised the right of suffrage for retaining membership in the European Union, expressing a desire to remain within the economic political fraternity considered the way of the future; and in the 2011 referendum on retention of the first-past-the-post voting system, believing the system we have is better than one of proportional representation resulting in chaos and government instability.

While deeply regretting Brexit, I also fear the future ramifications of dislocation within the internal structure of Europe itself. The cartel mechanism under rigid centralisation is a threat to its continued survival with the exercise of political authority.

CN KYLE
Hornsey Road, N7