Bring on that EU membership poll (From Daily Echo)

Bring on that EU membership poll

4:18pm Monday 30th January 2012 in Readers' Letters

TK Tew seems to bitterly resent the expression of any views which run counter to his own (Letters, January 23). So much so that he accuses “Ukip members” of using the Echo’s letters page “as a propaganda platform”.

I can assure this indignant person it is perfectly possible to hold Eurorealist views about the appallingly corrupt and antidemocratic EU, regardless of Ukip membership. Many Conservative and Labour voters feel similarly.

However, those two parties have consistently ignored the public mood and so Ukip really is the only game in town for those who have had enough of Brussels.

Citizen Tew complains of being “force-fed anti-European Little Englander views”.

Reading a publication (yours or any other) is entirely voluntary; this is not North Korea. Then that mendacious phrase “anti-European”.

Europe is a wonderful, scenic and culturally diverse continent. The so-called European Union, by contrast, is a creeping tyranny determined to meddle with every aspect of our lives.

Finally, that tiresome cliche, “Little Englander”... As one who looks beyond the neighbouring bloc, and sees the global potential of increased trade with Commonwealth nations and others I rather think TK Tew is the ‘Little European’.

They assert that an EU referendum will show a majority favouring continued membership. Bring it on!

COLIN HINGSTON, Southampton.