Letter: The deliverers and despots who hold our future in their hands

PETER KOENIG says we must join the EMU, while allowing that "Brussels is profoundly undemocratic" and that "it poses a real threat to British sovereignty" ("The year the globalisation dream died", Business, 20 December). The alternative "is marginalisation in an economically chaotic world". He says we have high interest rates because "class" makes us want to spend. And if low interest rates are imposed on us, this malaise will go away. Actually, it just might, thanks to European taxes, extra net contributions and trade deficit. Will that be good for recession?

David Chidgey ("Where's the meat in `apple pie'?") says we must join the EMU, which will give UK industry a stable (sic) and presumably, desirably weak currency, and stable, low interest rates. Why not just slash interest rates and weaken sterling anyway? The Government should "reduce business burdens through greater deregulation ... and simplify taxes on small business". Sadly, it can't. These burdens arise from our EU member-ship and will continue to grow. Many Europhiles are devotees of the sophistical sect known as Anglophobia. Rejecting secular constraints such as fact, historical experience and objective reasoning, this cult has fundamental articles of faith. Firstly, our management of UK society is irredeemably reprehensible. It follows we are neither capable nor worthy of our own salvation and must surrender conduct of our most important affairs to benevolent despots in Brussels and Frankfurt.

M J KNIGHT

Langley, Berkshire