Before being elected in 2004 I was prepared for a chaotic EU. An EU run by honest souls believing in a dream but misguided and trapped within a Mickey Mouse Outfit run by the Three Bears posing as the Three Wise Men. The truth is much less eccentric.

The President announced that the First World War was a Civil War and there were no Germans in the Second. A rewrite of European history was to be taught to our children in a way more akin to Monty Python than realism. It became plain that those in EU power had "records," some had assisted the USSR to brutally crush rebellions in fellow states; had convictions of various kinds and in the case of French Commissioner Jacques Barrot had not even bothered to declare a six month suspended sentence for embezzlement. My understanding of why the EU Accountants always failed changed. I realised that expenses were most important to them, closely followed by debating the rules of football.

It appears that armies of MEPs with the help of expenses sit on committees to generate sufficient regulation to close the UK down. Directives were debated affecting every area of human life, most having nothing to do with trade. Pesticides to sheep tagging, manufacture of car parts to proposals that car headlights be on all day, harmonisation of tractor parts to speed limits in forests. Costly and unnecessary laws were waved through, making no sense in the UK and not creating a single useful job. Post Office competition was surrendered to the EU because UK MEPs thought that was what the UK wanted, failing to see EU rules could not be revised at Westminster. Just like selling the legal system to the devil they allowed UK power to diminish.

MIKE NATTRASS MEP