Letter: Euro peril

Sir: Diane Coyle (Comment, 8 April) fails to address the real issues involved in economic and monetary union. The euro debate is not simply a question of whether to change the currency but of handing over the economic and ultimately the political control of this country to the European Union.

She describes those campaigning to keep the pound as "elderly men with more stake in their past than in our future". The view that democracy is important and that entry into EMU will erode it deserves to be properly addressed and not trivialised.

Those who want Britain to be part of a prosperous and democratic Europe should remember that Europe and the European Union are not synonymous. The EU's fledgling currency is designed to lock us into a federation from which there is no escape. We should leave the euro zone to endure its own self-imposed economic and political straitjacket and emulate Europe's more dynamic economies, Norway and Switzerland, outside the EU

JOHN BARNETT

East Grinstead, West Sussex