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NATO kept the peace, not the EU
Nottingham Evening Post - Wednesday, 12th September 2007 Dear Sir, Peter Valentine (Letters, 5th September) writes a sentimental letter saying that war is a terrible thing, and that we should be grateful to the EU for stopping it. He is right that war is a terrible thing, but wrong to credit the EU. The fact is that democracies don't go to war against each other, and the idea that without Brussels, France and Germany would be at each other's throats, is not credible. Our economies are so closely linked (credit globalisation, not the EU) that we'd find it difficult even to make weapons independently. The peace in Europe since 1945, and the peaceful defeat of the Soviet empire, was achieved by the transatlantic alliance, by NATO, by 100,000 GIs in Germany, by nuclear deterrence -- not by a bunch of bureaucrats in Brussels. The EU's military posturing is now threatening to weaken NATO, and is therefore a direct danger to our own national security, in an increasingly dangerous world. Valentine's talk of EU member-states as "fellow sovereign states in partnership" is preposterous. We have given up the right to manage our international trade, and much of our social, economic, industrial and employment policy, our agriculture and fisheries. The Renamed Constitution will add energy (there goes North Sea oil!), tourism, space policy, border controls, food safety and a host of other areas to Brussels control. The EU is undermining our democracy and accumulating huge powers in unaccountable institutions in Brussels. We can no longer pretend to be a sovereign nation. But the people are waking up to the threat: that is why they are demanding that Gordon Brown keeps his promise and holds a referendum on the Constitution. Roger Helmer Conservative MEP for Nottinghamshire |