Farage has a point - maybe!

IN response to our two UKIPers, Alan Cowles and Rob Sanderson, let me make it perfectly clear: whether we are in the EU or not, it will make no fundamental difference at all to Britain’s economic decline; we are going back to the 1930s and all its resultin

There is no hope of any recovery under a political and economic system that is in its death agony, and is dominated by a handful of billionaires.

Mr Sanderson in his recent letter challenges me on my assertions that: “as things stand the workers have everything to lose and nothing to gain by a Euro exit”.  I’ll explain. Britain, under the Tories (aka UKIP), vetoed the bill called The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union in 1989, and again at Maastricht in 1992. Can our UKIPer explain, if we already had such rights, why should we use our veto? But after the Labour victory in 1997, Blair, in one of his finer moments, overturned our opposition and, with a few minor details, we adopted what was The Treaty of Amsterdam, and that became Euro law.

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Without fear of scaring our UKIPers: the Tories are challenging — in the European Courts of Justice — laws that prevent bankers paying themselves big bonuses, and laws that commit companies to collective bargaining. Check it out!

Let me repeat what I said: rights “enshrined” in EU law — holiday pay, working time directive, equal pay for women — would be lost.

Now, you would think that, judging by Mr Sanderson’s letter, that UKIP supporters have never mentioned repealing the European Human Rights Legislation; but, can’t I remember when Abu Hamza, “the preacher of hate”, was paraded in front of us every other day when his case was a cause celebre for leaving Europe?

So, can our UKIPers explain to our readers: which of the European treaties, unions, courts, or conventions do they wish to pull out of? Or haven’t they figured this out yet?

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As I said, I have no illusion about the European Union in its current state: bankers and finance rule, not workers. But he asks me to put forward a pro-Euro case, so here goes. They are our largest trading partner. France, West Germany, Luxemburg, Belgium, Italy, and Holland got their heads together after the last war to prevent another slaughter of millions, in conflicts that defy comprehension, to put an end to the economic contradictions that led to the first, and then the second, world wars.

To do this, they formed the European trading bloc that has thus far succeeded in preventing another such slaughter. It is interesting to note here that when the last crisis in the Euro looked like splitting the bloc, Merkel actually said (in a slip of the tongue) that this could lead to war. In these woefully dire economic times, that warning should not be taken lightly! On that note, the EU also won the Nobel Peace prize in 2012 as recognition of that fact.

Mr Cowles and Mr Sanderson also take exception with me painting them as “oddballs” and “loonies”. Well I can assure them both that I was just parroting David Cameron. But now it seems their leader, Farage, is admitting that the “wrong kind of people are joining UKIP”. He’s calling them “Walter Mittys”, and saying that the party had got it wrong. Maybe that’s got something to do with one of their councillors saying the floods down South were due to gay marriage and God’s retribution; or maybe it’s a result of the barking mad MEP, Godfrey Bloom (one of their most prominent members) taunting a disabled student during an Oxford Union debate last week by asking him if he was Richard III, the medieval king who suffered with a spinal deformity; I don’t know, but maybe Farage has a point!

Dave Platts, Albany Street, Clifton

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