BOTH Jim Homewood and Keith Wiseman (Letters, March 12) accuse me of missing the point about their wish for Britain to withdraw from the European Union. Jim goes further by accusing me of a nave faith in the EU.

However, the point, as I see it, was proved way back in 1975 in the referendum on EEC membership which the then Labour Government sanctioned. I was on the wrong side of that argument, urging people to vote for withdrawal. If I ever was nave it was then. In the event, the British people put paid to my naivety when they decisively rejected by a margin of 2 to 1 our leaving what was then the EEC.

I was pleased and relieved when the Labour Party dropped its own opposition to the UK's EEC membership, although it took our defeat in the 1983 general election to complete the process. Since then Labour has worked to secure British interests by full participation in the European Union. Now, if any one is nave, it is those who believe that Britain will somehow become "independent" by withdrawing.

COUNCILLOR

DEREK BODEN