THE future of smoky bacon-flavour crisps is threatened by new European regulations, a national newspaper has claimed.

Eurosceptics have seized on this as another example of ludicrous behaviour by bureaucrats in Brussels. Trouble is, it's not true.

A European law on food additives is being revised with the full support of the British government. It takes into account new developments in smoke flavourings, establishes common rules and introduces measures to make sure the additives are safe.

In fact, it is one of thousands of European laws that do exactly what the EU is supposed to do, make it easier for manufacturers to trade in a marketplace of 450 million people while protecting the consumer from health risks.

It is clear that some newspapers are prepared to twist any truth in order to feed their anti-European agenda. If we cannot have an honest and informed debate about smoky bacon-flavour crisps, how can we have one about the euro or the draft European constitution?

It is time we had the only referendum that matters. Should we pull out of the EU and its economic area, or do we stop carping and commit ourselves fully to its development as a legal partnership of nations?

Perhaps only a question so clear and stark will force people to face up to the realities of the world in which we live.

CHRIS DAVIES (Liberal Democrat MEP for the North West), Castle Street, Stockport.