In response to Mr Homewood's letter "Why Constitution will be bad for us"(February 25), it seems to me that his interpretation of the provisions of the draft EU constitutional treaty does not stand up to examination.

For example, Mr Homewood states that we have a European police force already in Europol. That implies a force which can enforce the law in any part of the EU, whereas the draft constitution states that law enforcement is the exclusive responsibility of national police and other agencies, while Europols job is to collect information and distribute it among those national agencies. I happen to think that such co-operation is essential in dealing with many of todays problems.

Mr Homewood quotes from Part I, Articles 15 and 40 to justify his claim that the draft constitution is about coercing the UK into a militarised alliance. It seems to me that we are part of one now, but without any voting rights in Washington where the real decisions are made. Whereas in the EU we have voting rights and in the case of the common security and defence policy we have a veto (see article 4.4) which is reaffirmed later in Part III Article 201.

It seems to me that if the EU had had a common foreign, security and defence policy when President Bush was seeking support for his invasion of Iraq, he wouldnt have been able to pick us off and divide us so easily and we may even have achieved a reasonable and lawful outcome that didnt cost more than an estimated one hundred thousand civilian and several thousand armed forces deaths (so far), not to mention the huge growth of terrorism in Iraq.

As I see it, the aims of the proposed EU constitutional treaty are to make the EU more effective and more democratic.

It is ironic that some of those who oppose it are, in practical terms, in alliance with all those of various right wing persuasions who simply want the UK to leave the EU or who want an EU which is simply a free trade area, but without safeguards for workers, consumers and service users aimed at levelling the "playing field"by improving standards rather than dragging everyone down to the lowest level.

If that right wing anti EU agenda succeeds, it will not be long before we wave goodbye to the welfare state which came out of our determination to secure a better future for all after the Second World War.

COUNCILLOR

DEREK BODEN