Inconvenient truths of what EU withdrawal would mean

Why does Bill Carmichael persist in pedalling the fiction that in the EU, “everyone knows that the real power lies in the unelected and unaccountable European Commission” (Yorkshire Post, October 28)? This is utter nonsense.

Power in the EU lies where the treaties between sovereign nation states including the UK have put it and the Commission can act only in areas in which the treaties allow it to. Hence the recent discussions about moves to strengthen the euro bailout fund have been led by elected leaders such as Mr Sarkozy and Mrs Merkel, not by the much-maligned bureaucrats of the Commission.

This, of course, is inconvenient for those who want Britain to withdraw from the EU and spinelessly leave the development of our continent to others.

The EU isn’t perfect of course and it does seem that all too often its directives are prescriptive rather than opportunity-creating.

However the European Single Market to which most eurosceptics remain committed is surely worth protecting and developing? Outside the EU, Britain would have no influence on events. Furthermore while it is true that the euro was as much a political project as an economic one – and I was always strongly critical of Greek membership – Britain’s reasons for not joining were also political.

Hence the average anti-euro campaigner appeared more concerned that our membership would be disloyal to the veterans of World War Two and the legacy of the Empire and would upset the spirit of Queen Victoria (first language German!) or would damage our relationship with our masters in Washington.

None of it really dealt with the economics. Meanwhile this of all times is the time for us to see a British prime minister leading in the EU and stopping the pretence that the Union is either a centralised bureaucratic plot run by the Commission to destroy British inventiveness or a Franco-German scheme to lay us low – after all it can’t be both. So which is it Mr Carmichael?

Furthermore we could do worse than follow the declaration of the newly re-elected Polish government that Poland still plans to join the euro as soon as its financial stability has been restored. That’s the sort of pro-European commitment that I admire.

From: D Wood, Thorntree Lane, Goole.

AS the excuses for the failed euro and its useless parent the EU are exhausted, Angela Merkel and her pet poodle Nicholas Sarkozy resort to the old chestnut that the EU has been responsible for the peace in Europe for the last 60 years. And if the euro fails then the EU fails (true and the sooner the better) and that war will be the most likely outcome (Yorkshire Post, October 27).

This is pure myth; the British and American troops who have been stationed in Germany, the country which started the two biggest conflicts in the history of the world, are the ones who have ensured peace since the end of the Second World War.

Now ironically the current leader of Germany is again suggesting that war will come again unless she is allowed to get her way and continue to rule Europe.

As she said, what is good for Germany is good for Europe (if they know what’s good for them!) This is of course a scaremongering tactic from a woman clinging to a failed currency, created by a failed enterprise, as the German people would never stand for another European war after the losses which they sustained in the last two world wars.

From: Max Hey, Fairway Grove, Bradford.

I SEE bookies William Hill offered odds of 5/1 on David Cameron being booted out as Tory leader before the next General Election after his damaging EU spat with backbench MPs, 81 of whom voted for a referendum on EU membership.

This is nearly double the previous record of 41 for a Tory rebellion on Europe in 1993. Lib Dem councillors should put some money on that for their fighting fund against the Tories at the next General Election.