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

CONRAD BLACK appeared to be arguing that Britain's prosperity will be assured by parallel membership of the European Economic Area and the North American Free Trade Area ("Don't put all this at risk", 20 December). That is a future in which Britain would have as much influence on the trading policies of those two trade blocs as Norway has on the EU/EEA - effectively zero. Is this really where our future prosperity lies? Could our political institutions prevent us from being ground between the upper and the nether millstones in trans-Atlantic trade disputes, when those institutions have proved so notably unsuccessful in preserving the British economy since 1945?

PETER ALLSOPP

Bramley, Surrey