Down on EU Farm

We have been bombarded with arguments for leaving or staying in the EU, but to my knowledge nobody has looked closely at why we voted to join in the first place, and perhaps why there is so much division now.

I would make a closer analogy with the writings of George Orwell.

Basically Animal Farm convinces the animals to adopt a takeover plan based on a set of rules, but the pigs, who run the show, steadily pervert and change the rules so that the end result is nothing like what was agreed at the outset.

Originally created in 1957 by the Treaty of Rome to nurture free trade and negate the threat of bloody wars, we joined in 1973 when it was known as the Common Market, with the basic concept being for free trade.

In 1975 a referendum was held in the UK to determine if we should remain in the Common Market and there was a resounding 67 per cent support to stay, seeing the benefits of free trade with our close neighbours. Originally when set up the European parliament was only a consultative body, but now, through the many departments and courts (all existing in palatial buildings) it exerts tremendous powers over the member states, powers which many would not have voted for in 1975 had they known. In 2007 the Lisbon Treaty amended the 1992 Maastricht Treaty (establishing the European Union) and Treaties of Rome (which had already been modified) with only two countries being given the opportunity of a referendum to agree the far reaching changes. The referendum in Ireland rejected the proposal but eventually they agreed in 2009,whilst Denmark also required two referendums to force it through. Over the past 60 years since its original concept of free trade the EU has grown into a monster of additional bureaucracy and government (and financial burden) overruling our own national government, lawyers, and legal system, enforcing policies that are not always in the best interest of the British people, all without a referendum to approve these numerous changes. Is it any wonder that we now wish to leave the EU and its controls which were not part of the referendum in 1975, and indeed why the EU are keen to keep us in. The ultimate goal is for a United States of Europe where the UK would become a state and have no more power than that of say, California in the USA. And, who knows, we may be ruled and controlled by a European President Trump. We can only hope that Brexit will be a success. M Cribb

Palmers Road, Emsworth