Ian Smith, Colston Close, Bradford.
IN hindsight, I made a huge mistake in 1975 when – at that referendum – I voted to stay in the EEC. I was naive in assuming that the Common Market would remain as it then was. It didn’t of course, and throughout the 40 or so years since, it has ignored normal acceptable growth patterns to become, for us the populace, the uncontrollable behemoth that it is today.
The mistake that many people are now making is to assume that the EU will, with minor changes stay as it is. It won’t.
But it will continue to build and within the next two or three decades, it will probably have extended its monetary arrangements to all members, and established itself as the United States of Europe. Its strategy and “spirit of closer relations between the States belonging to it”, within the Treaty of Rome’s “an ever-closer Union amongst the peoples of Europe”, will ensure it.
We must not ignore that Treaty, as we in innocence and ignorance did in 1975. Past political promises become extraneous over time. That there’s an agreement today to exclude the UK from the EU’s aims, including the pound, will be irrelevant as the years pass by.
In fulfilling the EU’s objective, all layers of democracy will very likely disintegrate within the super state – unless we help by putting on the brakes to a complete halt. So for us that has to be Leave.
Many who support Remain talk of “better the devil you know”. But they appear not to know the devil they support at all – they make the same assumptions that I made in 1975.
Read more: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/opinion/yp-letters-a-fatal-blunder-that-let-eu-develop-into-today-s-behemoth-1-7883127#ixzz47BQNzBGp
