I SEE those tireless UKIP-bashers, Richard Grant and DR Smith, are at it again (Letters, August 20, 21 and 23).

Mr Grant claims that UKIP “wants to destroy Great Britain”, but gives no reason for this absurd assertion.

Reality could not be more different; the party is the only one dedicated to preserving our nation-state, whereas a loyal Lib-Dem like Richard would happily see it become an offshore province of the Franco-German hegemony, “harmonised” out of existence.

He then states, without a trace of irony, “embrace the European Union and be part of the global experience”. This is completely self-contradictory.

Our EU membership means that we cannot trade freely, without Brussels’ permission, with the rest of the world.

As Frederick Forsyth recently commented in a national newspaper (about the eurozone), we are tied to a bunch of losers.

DR Smith, meanwhile, trots out the mendacious phrase “far right”. If I wanted far-right politics, I would look to the BNP; certainly not UKIP. He accuses the party’s MEPs of duplicity – for being (elected) EU MEPs!

DR cannot see the wood for the trees: the only duplicity is the original, fundamental deception worked upon the peoples of Britain and the continent, by the scheming architects of this antidemocratic monolith: that we were merely signing-up to a Free Trade Area.

COLIN HINGSTON, Southampton.