Letter: Euro 'sceptics' come clean

Sir: No one should be surprised to hear it said that Britain may one day have to leave the European Union, for that is a view very widely shared by people of all political opinions. The decision of the Conservative and Labour leaders to join together to prevent a referendum from taking place before the Maastricht treaty was ratified, was specifically designed to deny the British people the right to decide that question for themselves. We are as a nation, therefore, in no way morally committed to accept Maastricht and we remain entirely free to reach our own decision about the future of Europe and our relations with it.

While the Tories have been in power many Labour voters and trade unions have looked to Brussels as a better alternative to what was being imposed from Downing Street. But when Labour is in power, and the Commission and the proposed Central Bank start issuing orders to us that would make it illegal for us to take action to achieve full employment, there will be a major revolt against such restrictions.

Britain is, and will always be, a European nation with a vital interest in maintaining peace and strengthening co-operation with its continental neighbours, but there are many other, and far better ways of acheiving this than under the treaties of Rome and Maastricht. Sooner or later, those treaties will have to be renegotiated to restore democracy to the peoples in all the member states who have been forced into surrendering their rights to a political class that does not represent us, is not accountable to us and to whom, therefore, we owe no loyalty or moral obligation whatsoever.

Yours faithfully,

TONY BENN

MP for Chesterfield (Lab)

House of Commons

London, SW1

12 October