Letter to the Crewe Chronicle, December 2013.

Dear Sir

No one can fail to be moved by the archive television footage of millions of Black South Africans queuing to exercise their democratic right to vote for the first time in 1994, following years of oppression and struggle for equality. Transmitted during the Television Coverage of the passing of Nelson Mandela, the pictures should remind us all that democracy and freedom are hard won, but easily lost.

Hence, I must highlight to the people of Crewe and Nantwich the very real danger presented by the EU to the democracy and freedom we enjoy in our country. Only a fool would oppose lasting peace in Europe and cooperation with our neighbours. These things can be achieved through treaties in specific policy areas, just as they are with our partners around the world. However, the blanket Political Union that has been forced upon the people of the United Kingdom has left us with extra layer of government which is unelected, unaccountable, incompetent, expensive, anti-democratic and outwardly anti-British.

Many people assume that the European Parliament is like our House of Commons, where legislation is proposed, debated, and voted upon by elected MEPs, who are accountable to us, the electorate. It is nothing of the sort. It is more akin to a toothless House of Lords - a second house, where legislation is discussed, rarely questioned and usually nodded though. Legislation – the laws with which we must abide every day – governing things from the amount of sugar in our jam and the curvature of our bananas, to the licensing of medical implants and who can and can’t come into our country and claim benefits – is proposed and implemented solely by the European Commission.

This is a body made up of 28 people, none of whom are elected or accountable. They are appointed political cronies. Very few of your readers will even know the name of UK’s own commissioner, whose job is not to represent the best interests of the UK, but those of the EU and is effectively more powerful than our own Prime Minister.

The Commission claims to consult ‘stakeholders’ and representative bodies, but refuses to publish details of whom these ‘bodies’ are. Of those that are known, many are in receipt of substantial grants from the EU in exchange for representation on their boards, who then ensure the EU are told exactly what they want to hear during these consultations.

In 19 years, the EU’s own Audit Commission has not once signed off the EU’s accounts – identifying billions of pounds lost to ‘unaccounted payments’ and corruption every year. If it were a business, the EU would be shut down for fraud.

The people of France, The Netherlands and the Irish Republic all rejected the imposition of the EU Constitution in referenda, only to have it forced upon them as the mildly rebranded ‘Lisbon Treaty’.

Any individual, having worked for the EU and in receipt of a gold plated EU pension (like Nick Clegg) can have that pension revoked if they publicly criticise the EU.

What kind of a democracy is this?

It is long overdue for the Government of the United Kingdom to show leadership to our friends in Europe by leaving the corrupt EU. Like those Black South Africans, we should never forget the sacrifices of the Peterloo Martyrs, the Suffragettes, and those fought in two world wars for the freedom and democracy we enjoy in this country.

Cllr Stuart Hutton CEng MIET, UKIP Crewe and Nantwich.