Don’t undo democracy

The beaming photogenic chairman of Loughborough Lib Dems (First Person 17^th May) started his column by referring to the roots of the EU that are actually the cause of subsidence and collapse of democracy. The “great work of democracy” to which he refers was undone at the stroke of midnight 1st January 1973 when our Members of Parliament sub-contracted their work to Brussels.

When reading what he wrote and reaching the passage “Europe now is peaceful, economically successful and a beacon of democracy in a troubled world” I wondered whether his television set needs re-tuning. The evidence to the contrary fills our screens almost daily ranging from labour reform riots across France, Greek people crushed by austerity measures and people injured by riot police. I have not known lasting peace in Europe for the past forty years. There have been attacks upon us by IRA, war in the Balkans, bombings in Madrid and, more recently, slaughter in European capitals. As for the economic success to which he refers, the euro single currency is a failure predictably doomed from the outset and unemployment queues amongst younger people across the continent grow ever longer.

No wonder I have never voted Lib Dem as a party seemingly so divorced from reality and never will. The prospects for a brighter future rest in re- joining the wider world and stepping off the gravy train driven by unelected bureaucrats to an unpredictable and worrying destination

George West