COLIN Bowden of Orford (Warrington Guardian, November 28) ought to check his facts before asserting that ‘the majority of the country voted to leave the EU’.

The population is about 66.44 million (2018).

The total eligible to vote at the time of the referendum was 46,500 001. A total of 17,410,742 voted leave: 16,141,241 voted remain and 12,948,018 did not vote.

This works out at 22.2 per cent of the total population voting to leave or 37.8 per cent of those eligible to vote voting to leave.

We are only in this mess now because David Cameron failed to word the act setting up the referendum so as to ensure an absolute majority of the electorate was required to pass the threshold for Brexit. Nearly all countries (Australia for example) require an absolute majority for a constitutional change which this is.

The consequences are the disastrous situation in which we now find ourselves where both the country and parliament are split roughly 50:50 and government is frozen.

EVAN BAYTON Moore