Sir, I should like to reply to the letter from P. E. Robin on Europe (Letters, May 21, Questions of Europe').

The political elite of Europe have no mandate from the electorate to abolish the nation states and create a federal entity.

Thus far it has been done by stealth; UK politicians from Heath to Blair have assigned powers rightly belonging to the UK electorate to a supra-national body in Brussels. The vote in the 70s was not on political union, it was on a trading relationship.

It is not the EU which has prevented war, it is the nuclear deterrent, the UN and the US/UK. Without these, Milosovic would have over-run the Balkans.

The France-German alliance is fine if that is what their people want, but have they had a vote on it?

The UK's wealth is not the result of EU membership which has destroyed the UK fishing industry and is now destroying UK farming; the wealth is due to effort and enterprise (in spite of EU regulations), to North Sea oil and Margaret Thatcher's revolution' in defeating militant trade unions.

The UK has given away billions to the less fortunate, but the UK contributions to the EU about £15 million per day net (which comes out of everybody's taxes) is mis-managed by the EU. Over 10 per cent of the EU's annual budget disappears!

The UK, as only one member, in now an EU of 25, can easily be out-voted on matters affecting Britain.

The leaders of the three main parties all want Britain to say in the EU, but large numbers of their ordinary members want Britain out.

Tony Blair's referendum should not be "The EU constitution Yes or No?" It should be: "The EU In or Out?"

Edwin Bateman Sedbergh