times letters
Dissent rallies outside the eurozone
From Mr David Tipping
Sir, After Sweden’s decisive rejection of the euro (letters, September 16), and in the expectation that Sweden, Denmark and Britain will continue outside the eurozone, the Conservative Party should consider what sort of constitutional arrangement for the EU would best reflect our national interests, and also create the right balance between those in the zone and those out.
A union with just three principled member states forming a northern segment of dissent, against 22 insiders, will be unbalanced. And how could such a large, disparate and potentially implosive collection of countries possibly conform to the collective discipline necessary? Suppose they all choose to behave like France?
I can understand the strong political motivation among our future partners, anxious to establish their new democracies within the Union. But I have always found it improbable that they could regard the adoption of a common currency as anything other than an unfortunate price to be paid.
Now is the time to question its inevitability. I believe Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Ancram should start talking to fellow dissenters in Denmark and Sweden, and go on to discuss this with the new EU members. Those of them who are committed to a referendum on membership, and ideally all of them, should be invited to include a question on the euro.
This would be the start of a wider consultation, to establish a stable, influential group within the Union able to offer to its members the mutual support to establish the sort of Europe they want.
Yours faithfully,
DAVID TIPPING,
Quarry House, The Avenue,
Sherborne, Dorset DT9 3AJ.
September 16.
From Mr Julian Williams
Sir, I disagree that Sweden is “political small change” (Comment, September 15). There is now a large sweep of Northern Europe — Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Britain — who collectively reject the idea of an EU superstate. They virtually surround one side of Germany.
To the other side of Germany are all the new entrants, who will have seen that it is a respectable option to keep out of euroland.
Germany, whose population was bounced into giving up the mark without a referendum, has an economy which is going stagnant and high interest rates that make its situation worse, and a southern neighbour who openly flouts the Stability and Growth Pact. At some point it is going to dawn on the German media and/or politicians that they joined the wrong club.
Yours sincerely,
JULIAN WILLIAMS
(Director),
Two Bad Mice (publishers),
Lampeter House, Lampeter Velfrey,
Pembrokeshire SA67 8UQ.
julian@hisoffice.biz
September 16.
Threats in Iraq, past and future
From Mr David Winnick, MP for Walsall North (Labour)
Sir, I certainly have no regrets over my support for the military action to destroy Saddam’s monstrous tyranny, any more than my earlier support for the ending of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and the overthrow of the Taleban regime in Afghanistan (letter, August 9, 2002).
However, it is important that agreement is now reached for a new Security Council resolution that gives the UN a much wider role, including political involvement, in the governing of Iraq (letters, September 17, etc). Once this has been done, a date should be set for elections to be held under UN supervision, and then the withdrawal of foreign troops.
This should be on the clear understanding in any Security Council resolution that the overthrow of an elected government will automatically lead to UN forces returning. Anything less than this would be a direct encouragement for the Baath party, or various terrorist groups, to once again install a dictatorship.
Yours, etc,
DAVID WINNICK,
House of Commons.
September 17.
From Mr David Fairbairn
Sir, We now know definitively that the 45-minute threat from chemical and biological weapons identified by intelligence was explicitly limited to battlefield deployment (report, September 16; see also letter, August 29).
Tony Blair therefore, far from protecting British lives from such a threat, did by his actions in mounting an invasion expose them to that threat by placing them in the one situation in which the threat obtained — on a battlefield.
Yours faithfully,
DAVID FAIRBAIRN,
11 Oak Way,
Harpenden, Hertfordshire AL5 2NT.
September 16.
From Mr Bob Forrest
Sir, The Government berated the BBC for Andrew Gilligan’s report and complained bitterly that it was based on a single, uncorroborated source. However, the Government had previously given huge weight to the 45-minute claim in its Iraq dossier, well knowing that the claim was based on a single, uncorroborated source. And now the head of MI6 tells us (report, September 16) that single, uncorroborated sources may well be accurate.
I have it on good authority that the appropriate response is to urge the pot to stop calling the kettle black. My authority is a single, uncorroborated source.
Yours, etc,
R. FORREST,
75 Ladymeade,
Ilminster, Somerset TA19 0EA.
September 16.
September 01, 2003
Blair's support for EU defence policy
From Mr Geoffrey Van Orden, MEP for Eastern Region (Conservative)
Sir, I was surprised by your headline “Blair sabotages French plan for EU army” (August 25). I am afraid the EU defence project, initiated by Mr Blair in 1998, is very much on track.
In Rome today senior foreign policy and defence officials from the 15 EU member states and 10 accession countries will discuss the further advancement of EU defence policy. But the Government’s use of a few Nato-friendly phrases and the proposal to create an EU “planning cell” at Nato’s operational HQ present no fundamental challenge to the divisive, anti-Nato forces that lie at the heart of the EU defence project.
EU involvement in defence is a political project that brings no added military value, just divisions within the transatlantic alliance, duplication of effort, and a distraction from real security needs. The EU’s so-called military operations are a charade, merely placing the EU flag on a French operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo and on a Nato operation in Macedonia. In the face of a real security threat, the EU will never have the capacity to replace what Nato offers.
The British public would be astonished if they saw the scale of political and intellectual energy — the diplomats and military staff officers, the committees, the conferences, the papers — devoted to the EU defence project. These are scarce resources that should be focused on real national security problems.
If Mr Blair were serious about wanting to anchor European defence efforts in Nato, he would insist that “autonomous” EU military structures be scrapped and that any military energy among European states (currently meagre in most cases) be concentrated on building substantive deployable military capacity for national and Nato use.
Your faithfully
GEOFFREY VAN ORDEN
(Conservative defence spokesman),
(Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats),
88 Rectory Lane,
Chelmsford CM1 1RF.
August 29.
August 13, 2003
Referendum on the EU constitution
From Mrs Christina Speight
Sir, The 1975 Common Market referendum was far from the simple matter that Mr Brian Hughes suggests (letter, August 6).
Many voted “yes” on the clear assurance given in the Wilson Government’s pamphlet, Britain’s New Deal in Europe, that:
Britain can veto any proposal for a new law . . . if (it) considers it to be against British interests . . . [and] no important new policy can be decided in Brussels without the consent of a British Minister.
It also said, in connection with the threat to jobs and industry through economic and monetary union, that “this threat has been removed”.
Since we are now operating under qualified majority voting and under pressure to accept the euro, these undertakings were worthless. No wonder trust in politicians’ promises is minimal.
Yours faithfully,
CHRISTINA SPEIGHT,
20 Ramillies Road, W4 1JN.
cspeight@dircon.co.uk
August 12.
From Dr Robert Gutfreund-Walmsley
Sir, You report (August 4) that the Government is considering granting EU citizens resident here the vote in any referendum on the euro.
This is welcome. Most of them, having been denied a referendum in their country and seen prices and unemployment rise, are as likely to oppose entry as to support it.
If the Government is seen to be unfairly meddling or deliberately misleading, as your correspondents suggest was the case in the 1975 referendum, the electorate will strengthen its opposition to entry.
Yours faithfully,
ROBERT GUTFREUND-WALMSLEY,
2 Sandileigh Avenue,
Withington, Manchester M20 3LW.
August 11.
From Mr Arnold E. Tarling
Sir, Whilst we may democratically select MPs and MEPs to represent us on such a complex matter as the European constitution (Mr Leonard Avery’s letter, August 6), such election does not automatically bestow upon these elected members informed reasoning.
I, for one, have downloaded the draft constitution and, having read it, believe that Britain should not sign the treaty. I would like the opportunity to make an informed vote in a referendum.
Yours faithfully,
ARNOLD E. TARLING,
43 Highfield Road,
Dartford, Kent DA1 2JS.
August 12.
August 05, 2003
Consumer debt and the economy
From Dr Michael Connock
Sir, Your rather stern leading article this morning on the dangers of borrowing is all very well. But one needs to remember that it is largely consumer borrowing and spending which have kept the poor old British economy going for the past few years. Exports and industrial investment demand have been very weak, and without big consumption we would have been suffering the waste of underemployment of people and machines. That, indeed, is precisely why the Bank of England has kept interest rates down.
You may well be right in believing that there is no imminent danger of a sudden crash but, in the circumstances, it would surely be fair as well as sensible to do something to mitigate the effect on borrowers.
A “lifeboat” scheme of some sort ought not to be beyond the wit of the financial engineers. The details would need to be worked out carefully. For example, it might make sense for the Government to take over responsibility for some bad consumer debts (maybe suitably “shaved” to punish reckless lenders a bit).
The borrowers could then be made to repay over future years, at a low or zero rate of interest, through the income tax system. They could be banned from taking on further debt until their existing debt was repaid.
Yours faithfully,
MICHAEL CONNOCK,
Elm House, Bentley Heath,
Barnet, Hertfordshire EN5 4RZ.
August 1.
From Mrs Madeleine Heaney
Sir, “Takes the waiting out of wanting” was the seductive slogan which launched one of the first credit cards.
No longer was it shameful to build up debt, it was smart.
No longer was patience a virtue, your desires could be gratified instantly. Now we are paying the price.
Yours faithfully,
MADELEINE HEANEY,
Hall Close House,
Main Street, East Haddon,
Northamptonshire NN6 8BU.
August 1.
From Mr Rajnikant J. Mehta
Sir, My late father’s advice, given in 1955 when I got my first pay packet, is still valid. It was: “As soon as you get your pay packet, set aside 5 or 10 per cent as savings and a minimum of 5 per cent for the less fortunate; never spend more than 85 per cent; never borrow for luxuries — buy them only if you can afford them. Most important of all, have full faith in the Almighty.”
He lived and died a truly happy man and, God willing, I hope to do the same.
Yours truly,
RAJNIKANT J. MEHTA,
18 Leigh Court, Byron Hill Road,
Harrow on the Hill HA2 0HZ.
August 1.
August 01, 2003
Echoes of the 1975 EU referendum
From Mr Robert Elphick
Sir, Perhaps Leslie Fraser-Mitchell (letter, July 30) is rather forgetful in his recollection of the 1975 referendum campaign.
As the BBC TV News Europe Correspondent at the time, I had the privilege of interviewing Margaret Thatcher at the European Parliament in Luxembourg on her first visit to the Continent after becoming Conservative Party leader and just before the campaign started.
Mrs Thatcher certainly made no bones about the referendum being highly political as well as economic. Discussing the forthcoming political battle, she too expressed her utter determination to protect British sovereignty while campaigning for a “yes” vote.
Yours sincerely,
ROBERT ELPHICK,
90 Lupus Street, SW1V 3HH.
relphick@compuserve.com
July 30.
From Mr Colin Bullen
Sir, Leslie Fraser-Mitchell writes that he was deceived by politicians at the time of the 1975 referendum, but he must bear some blame for allowing himself to be fooled in that way.
During the referendum campaign, Enoch Powell and Tony Benn, among others, warned that the whole European project had the ultimate aim of creating a single European state, yet they received nothing but abuse from many who now recognise the truth of what they said.
How much more culpable are those who continue to profess a belief that the EU is not set fair to become the United States of Europe, in fact, if not in name. Only British politicians persist in the pretence that a Europe of nation states is involved, the continental elites being quite open about the federalist intent of the whole process.
If the constitution is accepted it will spell the end of Britain as an independent country, and no obfuscation of the issue by the Europhiles should be allowed to distort the debate.
Yours faithfully,
COLIN BULLEN
(Member, National Executive Committee),
Campaign for an Independent Britain,
119 Douglas Road,
Tonbridge, Kent TN9 2UE.
July 30.
Nature of the EU
From Mr Keith Kyle
Sir, Mr Michael C. Chawner (letter, July 17) asks whether “a free-trade area and little more” was not what the electorate voted for in the referendum of 1975.
This is a legend which should not acquire credibility. I spoke at various meetings almost every night of that referendum campaign in favour of a “yes” vote. At each meeting, I found that by far the most positive response was to passages which referred to the European Community as being much more than a matter of drafts and packages, but to its being a political advance in international relations of a very radical nature, proportionate to the scale of the armed struggle in which I had taken a very modest part.
Yours sincerely,
KEITH KYLE,
25 Oppidans Road, NW3 3AG.
July l7.
From Mr John Bishop
Sir, In their comparisons of the proposed EU constitution with that of the US, Mr Andrew Hoellering (letter, July 17) and Lord Rees-Mogg (Comment, July 7) are academically entirely accurate. But academic arguments are surely less important than the mind-set of the people concerned.
The US citizen is strongly supportive of his state and its rights, but when anything serious is at stake he ceases to think about his state; he is, first and foremost, an American, and can always be relied on to put his country’s interests before those of his state.
The French (or German, or British, etc) citizen may be supportive of Europe, but when anything serious is at stake he ceases to think about Europe; he is, first and foremost, a Frenchman (German, etc) and can always be relied on to put his country’s interests before those of Europe.
Recognition of this fundamental difference is at the heart of any electoral process, and hence the exercise of all effective political judgment. The European nationalist ethic cannot be replaced by that of America simply by the imposition of constitutions and central regulations.
Yours faithfully,
JOHN BISHOP,
27 High Street, Needingworth,
Cambridgeshire PE27 4SA.
July 17.
July 15, 2003
Euro bank charges
From Professor Emeritus Alan Crowe
Sir, Judge Anthony Thorpe (letter, July 11) appears to be making an unwarranted generalisation about banks on the Continent. When I withdraw money from cash machines using a card issued by my Dutch bank, there is a fixed charge of €4.50 (£3.12), irrespective of whether the transaction takes place in the Netherlands or elsewhere.
If I use the card when shopping in England, I am charged 11 cents (about 8p) per transaction, but there is no charge in the eurozone. I would hardly call this robbery.
On the other hand, for every cash withdrawal or bill payment when abroad, my British bank issues a fixed charge of £1.50 in addition to a conversion fee of 2.25 per cent.
Yours faithfully,
ALAN CROWE,
10 Water Lane,
Bures Hamlet,
Suffolk CO8 5DE.
a.crowe@bures.fsnet.co.uk
July 11.
