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.
