LETTER: Afraid to fight for Europe

From Mr Ernest Wistrich

Sir: Polly Toynbee ("Who will come out fighting for Europe?", 10 May) is right in castigating pusillanimous business leaders and frightened Conservative pro-European politicians for failing to provide finance or speak out for Britain in Europe. The unpatriotic chorus of Eurosceptics, whose ultimate objective is British withdrawal from the European Union (which would gravely damage British interests, influence and prosperity), needs to be vigorously countered.

We should hear many more such voices as Edward Heath's, whose splendid speech to large numbers of European Movement members on Europe Day yesterday remained unreported in the press. We also need the active involvement of some of the many thousands who visited and evinced interest in the European Movement stand in Hyde Park during the three-day VE Day festivities.

As director of the European Movement during our campaign for British entry into the Community and the subsequent 1975 referendum, I believe that now is the time, once again, to mobilise all pro-European forces to ensure not only that Britain stays within the EU but that it plays its full and rightful part within it in maintaining the peace that, thanks to European integration, we have enjoyed in Western Europe over the past 50 years.

Yours faithfully,

ERNEST WISTRICH

London, NW3

10 May