Wishful thinking over European link and Thatcher’s legacy

YOUR letter writer Dr Powell of Kellington engages in more Eurosceptic wishful thinking by claiming that Britain would forge “closer trading links” with developing countries and the wider Commonwealth if we were to quit the ‘nonsensical EU’ (Yorkshire Post, May 30).

His comments came just as David Cameron was in Washington discussing a possible Europe-US free trade agreement whose design Britain would have no part of were we to walk away from the EU.

At present we help to make the rules of the single market whose combined annual GDP is over £10 trillion. While it is correct that outside the EU Britain probably could negotiate a customs union, we would lose all say in how our continent develops politically and economically.

I agree that at present the EU lacks democratic accountability but it does just what the nation states have asked it to. Hence there is no EU involvement in for example national education or health policy.

The EU isn’t telling Spain to ban bullfighting nor did it involve itself in the fox-hunting saga here. When more democratic procedures are proposed, eurosceptics deride these as threatening the nation state. As I have pointed out before Germany is a federal state whose regions enjoy well-defined powers. These states are not prepared to cede powers to Berlin let alone Brussels.

It’s also true that while the EU hasn’t single-handedly maintained the peace in Europe since World War Two – Nato played the major role in this – it is the vehicle which reconciled France and Germany, one of the consequences of which is that young people today meet each other in the context of cultural exchanges and not on the battlefield.

Let’s reform the EU just as other organisations like the UN and even the political structure of the UK require reform. But don’t let’s create a situation whereby the good ship Britannia has to navigate the world looking for ad hoc allies and in which our American friends shape our world with the French and Germans and Washington only calls us when they want troops for foreign adventures.

From: Don Burslam, Elm Road, Dewsbury Moor, Dewsbury.

GORDON Lawrence (Yorkshire Post, May 25) believes I underestimated Mrs Thatcher’s achievements, so let’s look at the major changes with which she is associated,

Big Bang. This involved 
turning building societies into banks and setting free the City. We have since seen the banking and financial services at their worst and few now think this reform has stood the test of time.

Sale of public utilities. This was meant to bring the stimulus of competition to gas and electricity prices. What we got was an oligopoly without any true competitive pressure at all. The companies are now owned by foreigners. Talk about a licence to print money.

Sale of council houses. This was to swell the ranks of property owners. Yes, but this reduced the stock of available housing for homeless families, worsening an already desperate situation. It only remains to point out that the income from the North Sea was at its zenith in the 80s which was a priceless bonus for the government.

I stand by my contention that radical reform in an imperfect democracy like ours is not a practicable proposition, at any rate in the long term.