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		Letter to the Editor Nottingham Evening Post - Tuesday, 27 May 2003 Dear Sir, Labour MEPs are getting into the habit of voting against their own government's line in the European parliament. Now Mel Read and Phillip Whitehead are arguing against their government's euro policy (letters, 20/5). The whole point of Labour's five tests, on which Blair and Brown say they are agreed, is to see if the euro is in the British interest. To say, as Read and Whitehead say, that "staying out is not a cost-free option", is to pre-judge the tests. Of course there are costs if we stay out, but many people believe there would be much greater costs if we go in. For example, the European Central Bank has said that if we join the euro, we won't be able to have a free health service in Britain. The Labour MEPs ask us to imagine 24 EU countries with the euro (although Denmark and Sweden haven't joined yet), and Britain outside. OK, let's imagine. 24 countries with a common interest rate. That means the wrong interest rate for most countries, most of the time. It means some countries with recession and massive unemployment, like Germany; other countries with what the European Commission admits is "unsustainable demand pressures" - that's inflation to you and me - because they have the wrong interest rate. But if we keep the Pound, the Bank of England will set the right monetary policy for British prosperity and British jobs, as it has very successfully for the last six years. The British economy is doing very much better than the euroland economies. Let's keep it that way - and keep the Pound. Yours sincerely, Roger Helmer MEP Chris Heaton-Harris MEP