UK must not become '9th state of USE'

Today, retired economist Jos Haynes, who spent almost 20 years advising new member states in central and eastern Europe on EU agricultural and rural policy, says he voted leave because he does not want UK to become the ninth province of a United States of Europe. If you have an opinion send it in 350 words tonews@connexionfrance.com

Unlike other people featured in your letters page, I voted for Brexit and would have voted that way whatever my personal circumstances.

This issue fundamentally was about democracy, which does not exist in the Brussels institutions that actually have the power and make decisions.

People shout back 'The Parliament' - but this is just a talking shop for those already seduced by fat salaries, vast expenses, and a lavish lifestyle. It has no power.

It is my experience that 95% of the people who voted - and probably the same percentage of expats who did not - have not the least idea of what the EU is about; its finances, its activities, its decision-making processes.

It is a technocratic organisation which brooks no opposition. Some out there may like those plans, but anyone who values liberty and the ability to change one's masters periodically at an election finds the current political institutions anathema.

You may want to become the ninth province of a United States of Europe, where the purpose of elections is merely to endorse whatever your Eurocats (sic) have decided for you, but some of us have a bigger and better vision.

It has been commonplace for the Remain campaign to label people like me as stupid, ignorant, racist and fascist - it is so much easier to call people names rather than address the arguments! 'Little Englanders' is another label hurled at us. But a country that looks out to the world, rather than inward into its cosy protectionist bloc that fears world competition, contributes far more to international stability.

People may not know or understand that the EU has been destabilising international agricultural markets since 1962 with policies to support production even if there is no market.

Fortunately, the income-reducing effects on third world countries was substantially reduced by the Uruguay Round agreement, which established the World Trade Organisation - an agreement the EU resisted as much as it could. The EU is still distorting agricultural markets, though on a reduced scale.

And don't talk about the EU's peacekeeping role in Europe. It was and is Nato that has always faced up to the threats from the east. Where was the EU when civil wars erupted in Bosnia? And Kosova? Georgia? And who was the biggest contributor to the civil war in Ukraine? Yes, the EU, with its desire to draw Ukraine away from Russia through its Association Agreement, that would have put out of business all industry in the east of the country since it had always been oriented to supplying the Russian market with 'non-EU standard' products.

And where was the EU assistance when that war broke out?

I have a different vision of Europe, a Europe without an unelected power base in Brussels.

My vision is of countries growing together, of developing closer integration through economic and social agreements, made with the consents of the respective electorates. And eventually, almost inevitably, here would be a desire for a political union, an agreement among two peoples to join as one country. Nothing would be forced. This could, and should, take decades.

Eventually, one might have a united Europe, or at any rate a group of countries happy to share their sovereignty. That type of Europe would be successful. The EU we have is no more than a trough for the selected few to keep their snouts in, while crumbs and threats are alternately thrown to the plebs. No wonder the EU lacks popular support.

Jos Haynes, Normandy