AS THE creeping usurpation of British national independence continues, a vociferous campaign is being waged by Europhiles, who hope that the electorate will be hoodwinked into supporting our entry into European Monetary Union. Those Britons percipient enough to recognise where this is leading us will not be fooled. Membership of the EMU is a harbinger of full-blooded federalisation. We must all speak out loudly against it while we can!

I have been an opponent of our involvement with the European imbroglio ever since our membership of the European Economic Community was first mooted by Harold Macmillan in the 1950s. At that time it was my opinion that President de Gaulle's refusal to let us join did us a favour; but unfortunately too many of our politicians, economists and financiers thought otherwise, and we eventually joined. The proponents of membership were never concerned with the well-being of the British people, but rather with the opportunities for big business and the prospects of "jobs for the boys." One has only to follow the gravy-train careers of such failed politicians as Kinnock, Brittan and Patten,and the likes of Prodi and some of the other Euro commissioners, to get the gist of my meaning.

Before Edward Heath signed the Treaty of Accession, the then Tory Government (1970-74) promised that there would be "no erosion of essential national sovereignty." They also said that the then EEC was simply an economic community. I and many others simply did not believe them; and who can now say that we were wrong? The destruction of our manufacturing, fishing and farming industries, the plethora of bureaucratic rules and regulations emanating from Brussels, and the inability of our politicians to do anything constructive to rectify matters show what little power over our affairs we now possess.

And today there is no longer even the pretence that the Community is simply an economic grouping; it now calls itself "European Union." I believe that sooner or latter, like its predecessors the Rhine Bund and the Hanseatic League, lead to war in Europe.

Even the economic arguments on which the original case for British entry to the EEC was posited proved to be illusory. Since we joined, our volume of trade in our traditional markets outside the EU has been gravely damaged, while our trade deficit with the EU itself has massively increased. So much for the Europhiles' confident prediction that by our joining a market of 300 million people our economic problems would be solved at a stroke. One can now see how hollow, if not downright dishonest, these claims were.

Incensed

Having carefully studied the Treaty of Rome in the late 1960s, I was so incensed by what membership would mean for Britain that I became a founder-member of an anti-Common Market association in the West of England. At that time I was serving in the Royal Air Force. As a result of my activities and the publicity it caused, I fell foul of the RAF authorities on the grounds that I was participating in political activities, which are of course forbidden to servicemen. My reply to such charges was that I was simply opposing the treasonable actions of Mr Heath and his colleagues, who were proposing to surrender our national sovereignty to an extraneous foreign organisation, for which in former times they would have been impeached. This argument rather stumped my superiors and no action was taken against me, though my promotion prospects were probably not greatly enhanced!

While Mr. Heath was doing his utmost to take us into the EEC, the Labour Party under Harold Wilson sat on the fence in a rather cowardly fashion. During the second general election of 1974, Labour promised to hold a referendum to determine whether or not we should remain in the EEC. This was simply an electoral ploy because Mr Wilson knew how unpopular the EEC was with the electorate. I felt sure that if he won the election he would manipulate the referendum to ensure that we would stay in the EEC. And that was precisely what happened! Vast sums of public money were spent by the Government on propaganda to persuade the people to vote "Yes"; but similar facilities were not made available to those of us who were opposed to continued membership. I well remember propaganda leaflets extolling the virtues of the EEC being distributed in our local post office, but when we requested that anti-EEC leaflets should also be given out we were told that it was forbidden "on government orders"! I very much fear that when Blair's promised EMU referendum is held the same skulduggery will occur.

More control by Europe

If we are foolish enough to join the single currency it is quite obvious that the unelected Commissioners (Commissars?) who already have so much control over our lives will have even more. Readers will be well aware that the European Parliament has very limited powers at the moment and has been unable (or unwilling) to get rid of the fraudulent Commissioners who last year were caught with their fingers in the till!

It was the poet Ezra Pound who wrote in the American journal Impact many years ago: "From time immemorial it has been recognised that national sovereignty inheres in the power to issue money and determine the value thereof." We have already witnessed the disastrous consequences of our joining the Exchange Rate Mechanism. Signing up to the EMU will, I predict, be equally catastrophic for our country. So much is the issuing of money a mark of a government's sovereignty that - whenever it is surrendered that government ceases to be in charge of events, ceases to be the real ruler, ceases to be free, and becomes little better than a puppet in the hands of a power greater than itself, which it is forced to obey.