A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 14th May 1992.

Mr Major’s assertion that the sovereignty of Parliament “is not a matter that is up for grabs” (report, May 13th) is destined to be placed alongside the remark of another Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, who said on the eve of the referendum in 1975 that the threat of economic and monetary union “has been removed”.

The 1988 Merchant Shipping Act, which was passed by the House of Commons without a single dissenting voice, in effect has been completely set aside by the European court.

If that is not handing over the sovereignty of Parliament, perhaps Mr Major could explain what he thinks it is.

On the eve of ratifying the Maastricht Treaty, MPs should ask themselves if the present Prime Minister is merely deceiving himself, or actively trying to deceive the British people as to the true import of this Treaty.

Behind a smokescreen of babble about democracy, trade and level playing fields, every single act of the European Commission, from which this profoundly undemocratic Treaty stems, is directed at one goal and one goal only, the incorporation of this and other countries into a single state, like America, Australia or India.

No MP who cares about the actual foundations of our democracy, as expressed, for instance, in Clause 39 of Magna Carta (1215) and Section 1 of the Bill of Rights (1689), can possibly in conscience vote for this Treaty.

A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 21st May 1990.

Few readers will, I suspect be convinced by Ferdinand Mount’s assurances (article, May 18) that European Union would not affect the position of the Monarchy.

Nor do bland assurances along the same lines from such as Mr Edward Heath and Mr Gerald Kaufman at the time of the Dublin summit carry conviction.  Nobody of course is suggesting that the Queen will simply disappear if Mr Heath’s passionate desire to convert this country into a province of Franco-German Europe is fulfilled.

Nor is it supposed that the Prince of Wales will stop making speeches.  What people see is that the essence of the Queen’s role as Head of State will evaporate as she is replaced in that role by a President of Europe.

In fact the first unification of Germany, after the Franco-Prussian war in 1871, provides an exact illustration.  Bavaria Wurtemberg and Baden were kingdoms which were incorporated into the new Germany.  Their monarchs, while continuing on their thrones until 1918, became of vastly diminished significance.  Today these states are simply provinces of the German Federal Republic.

In Britain the queen symbolises the freedom of the British people alone to make their own laws and employ their armed forces to defend that freedom, as they alone see fit – arguably the essential freedm contained within clause 39 of Magna Carta itself.  When that freedom is abolished the single most important aspect of the Queen’s role is abolished with it.

This is a 10-page paper by Prof Stephen bush, written in May 1990 to show the fallacy of the “middle way” approach to Britain’s membership of the European Union.

It was based on an address to the Schools’ Industrial Liaison Committee at Oundle School and it was later published by Prosyma Research Ltd as part of a series on Britain’s Future “Independence or Extinction” in 1990 (ISBN 0 9517475 1 7).

To see the text from a pdf file on the Britain Watch website, please click on No Middle Way.