A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 29th October 1991.

It was written by senior members of the Campaign for an independent Britain: Lord Stoddart of Swindon (Chairman), Sir Robin Williams (Secretary), Austin Mitchell (Labour MP and vice-chairman), Professor Stephen Bush (vice-chairman).

The news that the present Prime Minister is flying to Germany to see Chancellor Kohl will cause despondency in those who recall or know of the flight of another Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. He flew to meet another German Chancellor in a similarly vain attempt to appease the unappeasable.

Every Westminster MP must recognise by now that it is not the freedom and independence of a small country “of which we know little” which is at stake, as in 1938, but that of our very own homeland.

Continental countries led by France and Germany want the complete surrender of this country to their bidding on all fundamental matters, particularly where, as is usually the case, our interests and theirs are opposed. Besides wishing to abolish our currency, Germany wants us to give up our seat on the Security Council at the United Nations, an organisation which we helped to set up.

The EC Commission aims to control our external relations, particularly those with the United States, and in short order thereafter deployment of our armed forces. In trade the GATT negotiatios show how we are already being conscripted to fight our natural friends and allies in the English speaking world.

As usual, a British government is trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Instead of rushing to appease Chancellor Kohl, Mr Major should sit tight, veto political union and let the Germans carry out their threat to veto economic and monetary union – and if they don’t, we should.

We can leave the other 11 countries to form their 1940s-inspired union and let it wristle with the combined problems of millions of economic refugees, the Common Agricultural Policy and the importunate demands of Spain, Greece and Portugal, unsubsidised by the British taxpayer.

For Britain to escape from this nightmare of the past and rejoin the future, all that is needed is a little courage on the part of the Government to face the plain fact that this is the parting of the ways.

A letter to the Times which was published on 22nd May 1991.

To speak, as Derek Prag does (May 15th) of foreign policy as an example of things which European states can do better jointly is plainly absurd.  Even more than within Europe, Germany, France and Italy are our bitter rivals for trade and influence in that 95 per cent of the world which lies outside the European Community, as anyone who has travelled in the Americas, Asia and Africa can testify.

It is no more sensible to talk (as the media do incessantly) of our European “partners” than to talk of ICI and duPont as “partners” in the Chemical industry, or Everton and Liverpool as “partners” in the FA Cup.  “Competition” is the word, not “partners”.

Britain has a much greater stake in the countries of the non-EC world than any other member of the EC through the spread of the English language and culture and our seminal role in founding about half of those countries.  We have in fact (1988-9) a substantial positive balance of trade with the non-EC countries which goes some way to offsetting the huge £15 billion) negative balance with the EC.

Any joint EC foreign policy, like the joint agricultural policy, like the joint fisheries policy and so on, is therefore bound to be at our expense, as other EC countries manoeuvre to enjoy our advantage.

Mr Prag’s fantastic claim that “on balance, the existence of the EC has probably been the greatest bulwark of free trade” is made at a time when the EC is on the verge of provoking by the greakdown in the Gatt negotiations the most destructive trade war in history, conscripting Britain to fight our natural friends and allies in the English-speaking world, tarring us in fact with the EC protectionist brush.