A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 4th February 1992.

Charles Moore is right (article, Jan. 31st).  There is something rotten in the State of the Union, and that is the corrosive defeatism which has gripped most of the British political class since Suez.  To this defeatism must be added the automatic denigration of our country by the majority of journalists and other members of the chattering classes who gullibly reproduce any claim about the superiority of continental countries.

Dirk Bogarde’s review of two books on Germany (Weekend, Feb. 1st) is a case in point.  Beside his fantasies about the three-language abilities of ordinary Germans is the matching remark about our “impoverished, rather smug island”.

According to the OECD, the real disposable incomes per head in Britain, Germany (before unification), France and Japan are only trivially different when calculated in purchasing power parities.  Last year a German study revealed that of the best 50 companies in Europe, 27 were British, while the value of the top 500 companies quoted on the London Stock Exchange is greater than those of Frankfurt and Paris combined.  Britain’s net overseas assets (at around £130 billion) are the greatest of any country in the world (including Japan).

Yet these facts about our real strength do not prevent George Jones, for instance, referring to Britain’s “declining economic influence” (Jan. 31st) when discussing pressure brought by the Germans and Japanese on Britain to give up its UN Security Council seat.

The increased pressure for the separation of Scotland from the Union is a predictable consequence of Britain’s insane policy of surrendering her independence to the European Cmmunity – itself a direct consequence of post-Suez defeatism.

To paraphrase Ludendorff’s supposed remark about the British Army, we have become a lion of a country ruled by ninnies, and nobody wants to be part of that when there is an alternative.  Whichever party announced it was reclaiming Britain’s independence and would not ratify the Maastricht surrender would both win the next election and save the Union.

A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 30th October 1990.

Your editorial (Oct. 29th) is wrong to say that Britain has a weak negotiating position in respect of the EEC.  We have no negotiating position to stop a United States of Europe coming about because all the Continental countries fervently wish it to come about.  Our wishes and theirs are mutally exclusive, and no soft-voiced diplomacy will alter this.

Furthermore, the British people do not “appreciate the material benefits which close association brings” because there are none.  Free trade may bring benefits, though vastly exaggerated, but this arrangement is open to any Western European country, whether in the EC or not.

If British politicians as a whole could bring themselves to accept these basic facts, we would then start negotiating sensible arrangements with the future European Union, as one sovereign power to another. Here our position is strong because we take about £16,000 million more of their goods than they take of ours, and no German or Frenchman will wish to jeopardise that.

As for currencies, why does Sarah Hogg try to frighten us with talk of a European super currency?  The ecu will be just a currency, a medium of exchange, like the yen or the dollar, against which the pound will have a rate as it does against these currencies today.

Again all this talk of hanging on to the City’s role is so much special pleading.  If foreign banks want to relocate their head offices in Frankfurt or Paris, let them – and the absurd rents in London will fall.  In fact the loss of the City’s casino role in our economy would be of enormous benefit to us.  Perhaps then it could get down to the task of financing the manufacture of goods that even Germans would want to buy.