A letter to the Sunday Times which was published on 11th July 2010.
The Rolling Stone article that appeared in News Review under the headline “Downfall of the Jedi general” (June 27th) states that the purpose of the now-sacked General McChrystal in going to Paris in April was “to keep up the fiction” that America had allies in the war in Afghanistan that “has become the exclusive property of the United States”.
In fact, Britain has suffered more losses proportionately to deployed forces and population than any other country, including the United States. Last week saw the 314th death (not to be confused with casualties, as there are more than 1,000 of these). No other Nato country, except Canada, comes near these proportionate sacrifices. Is the expensive British embassy in Washington telling the American people about this? One suspects it is not.
A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 26 June 2001.
You say (today) that “anyone looking dispassionately would have to account it (the EU) more a success than a failure”. The question is success for whom?
Certainly it’s a success for the “rich distant élite of bureaucrats” as you describe them, and the mainly retread politicians who act as EU commissioners. But democracy in Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Holland and Denmark was established or re-established by the Allied military victory in 1945 and Western Europe’s peace since then guaranteed by NATO not by the EU as your editorial seems to imply.
The small EU countries may have gained in self-esteem since the EU gives their politicians a chance from time to time to act as if they are in charge of Europe’s destiny, while senior French bureaucrats actually call the shots. But does anyone seriously believe that Germany would not be the third largest economy in the world, or that Britain’s fishing would be all but destroyed, if they were not members of the EU?
A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 14th December 1999.
Serious as are the current threats to our national interests posed by Euro-taxation, Euro levies on the art market and the Euro defence initiatives, they are as nothing to the threat posed by the prospective admission to European Union membership of mainly East European countries, totalling about 130 million people with an average income per head of about a tenth of ours.
The Office of National Statistics shows that more than 400,000 migrants, mainly job seekers from the present EU countries, arrived here in 1998 (report, Dec. 1st). This figure, equivalent to the whole adult population of Bristol and Reading taken together, is set to grow as EU nationals, who need no job permits, are increasingly attracted by our high social security provision and low unemployment, especially in the overcrowded southern England.
The actions of our political leaders, both Labour and Tory, pass from folly to insanity in supporting the EU candidature of Turkey (report, Dec. 11th). This predominantly Asian Muslim country borders Syria, Iran and Iraq, with a population of 63 million increasing at two per cent per year.
A common Christian heritage was supposed to be the fundamental reason for bringing the disparate peoples of Europe together. Now even that principle is to be discarded. Whatever Turkey’s merits as a partner in Nato, they are irrelevant to the matter in hand.
Britain’s only protection from the prospect of being overwhelmed by a tidal wave of what will be legal, not illegal, migrants, is complete withdrawal from the EU madhouse while there is still time.
A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 24th June 1999.
Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, made it clear in his Belfast speech last week that the concerns of Irish republicans, dedicated to wrenching the United Kingdom apart, are as valid as those of Unionists, dedicated to upholding it (report, June 15th). The Unionists are portrayed as the obstacle to setting up devolved government because they decline to do what no other democracy has ever done, namely admit into government a party linked to a terrorist organisation.
As one act of appeasement of the IRA follows another, the Sinn Fein proportion of the nationalist/republican vote rises in step. In the 1992 general election, which ushered in the “peace process”, the proportion was 28 per cent; in the recent Euro-elections (with a Northern Ireland turnout of almost 60 per cent) the proportion has risen to nearly 40 per cent.
The unambiguous plan for the handing over of arms by the Kosovo Liberation Army announced by Nato contrasts with the endless prevarication over the same issue by Sinn Fein/IRA. Imposing moral principles on Serbia by virtually risk-free bombing is one thing. Upholding democratic principles in the face of an opponent such as Sinn Fein/IRA, able and willing to inflict real damage – well, that for Mr Blair is evidently a different matter altogether.
A letter to the Editor of the Daily Telegraph which was published on 4th July 1989.
Mr Heseltine (letter June 29th) conspicuously declined to answer my question about what limits, if any, he would set on the transfer of British sovereignty to Brussels. Instead we have the usual obfuscation about all alliances imposing constraints on a nation’s freedom of action.
Most people, however, can see the difference between an alliance like Nato with its specific and limited objectives and the Single European Act which, inter alia, allows the 11 other members of the Council of Ministers to issue instructions to Britain on matters that have nothing to do with free trade, which was what the British people have been led to believe was the objective of joining the EEC.
As for the EEC being a means of avoiding economic domination by the United States and Japan, Mr Heseltine should contemplate the make-up of our colossal manufacturing trade deficit, 85 per cent of which is attributable to our trade with the EEC (chiefly Germany). By contrast our trade with our biggest customer, the United States, is fundamentally in balance, as it has been through the years of our mounting deficit with the EEC.
