NEVER Land. The past is another country? Our Daily Echo editor, Ian Murray, is quite right in summing up his end of the week editorial, “Hankering after the past?” (Daily Echo, April 4).

Ian obviously does not wish to turn the clock back, yet will do so at the end of summertime.

Nigel Farage is equivalent to the resurrection of Moses, a leader who wishes to lead his followers back to the Promised Land. “Lord my prayer has been answered”.

Two world wars, millions of people gave their todays for our tomorrows, and the past that really was?

A land of hope and glory, freedom and democracy, the right to work and toil in poor conditions on low wages, in factories and coal pits, the right to strike and struggle, against a nation of greedy bosses, for the wages enjoyed by others today, at great sacrifice to themselves and their families.

Sheffield with its hi-tech industries has risen from the past. And, as Ian said, none would wish to return to the coal pits, and the battering their forefathers received at the hands of Maggie Thatcher’s Rottweiler police force.

Yes, this was the Great Britain I was born into in 1935, a country I love, not a Little England as Clegg would have us believe.

“Don’t turn your backs on the EU,” he said. “Your jobs depend on it.” Scaremongering tactics?

Yet to my shame, that is precisely what our government did to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, India and the rest of the Commonwealth.

Did we care about their jobs?

We were never told the truth. In 1976 I, like millions of my countrymen, voted to join the European Free Trade Agreement, which is still in existence, and has not been rescinded.

No jobs will be lost should the people ever be given the right to a referendum and decide for themselves to leave the sinking ship.

Future generations would benefit if we joined Europe, we were told. Where are the benefits? Clegg replies, when asked how he saw Europe in the future, it will be the same as it is today.

Little England with no say? In or out, our cosmopolitan nation must decide now before it’s too late.

Nigel’s ark will not be big enough to save us from the floods on our doorstop, or the Full Monty from our European masters.

Alan Willott of Southampton.