EU no way to keeping peace

Mr Perkins asks in the Star, November 10, "What's the alternative to the EU?" Well, having the EU will not prevent wars. In fact, arguably, the wedge the EU government is driving between us and our anglicised cousins will help to ensure the next one, albeit a long way off.

The EU, despite its claims, hasn't kept us war-free for 50 years. Nato's done that.

The common market economy has merely brought us into a customs union which makes it much more difficult to trade with the rest of the world.

We are no longer allowed to decide under the terms for out trade outside the EU. In three years time, we won't be allowed to import any goods marked in imperial measurements and we won't even be allowed to manufacture such imperial goods at all - not even solely for export.

The CAP, on the other hand, costs every family in this country knocking on for £1,000 a year. It isn't that we don't like Europeans - as my bumper sticker says: "Love Europe, Hate the EU" .

The world has always been in a mess, it's just that we know more of it more quickly nowadays. And we could do more about it if we had control over how we spend foreign aid, if we didn't rob poor countries via our tariff barriers, if we didn't bribe foreign despots to allow EU fishermen to devastate their waters.

A J Astley, Montgomeryshire