Letter: UK role in Europe

Sir: Yves Thibault de Silguy is the latest in the procession of EU potentates who visit us to endorse the empty rhetoric of our home-grown preachers of EU platitudes. He represents a disgraced, self-serving and incompetent Commission.

We are sometimes told that the fundamental goal of the EU is to end European wars (by creating a federal superstate). Since Charlemagne, the main theme of European political history has been the struggle for continental hegemony between the powers we now call France and Germany. From this perspective, a "Europe of regions" run by a Franco-German axis might be just what is needed.

The UK, however, is not part of this ancient historical problem, which is why talk of our "influence" in the EU, or lack of it, is irrelevant nonsense. We do not need to meddle in or pay for this latest attempt at a solution.

Becoming a "first-rank" member of the EMU would qualify and compel us to pay more heavily for the huge social security liabilities of the axis countries and many of their satellites, and for their new imperial ambitions in the East. For this privilege, we would surrender what is left of our independence and liberties to blundering institutions destructive of democracy and public probity.

MICHAEL KNIGHT

Langley, Berkshire