YOUR report of the European Poll results (June 17) suggested that I had ?dismissed? the UKIP showing as a ?protest vote?.

I do not dismiss it.

While I believe that many hundreds of Conservative supporters voted UKIP but intend to vote Conservative in a general election, I regard the outcome of the EU vote as a wake-up call to all Conservatives.

The EU?s increasingly explicit ambitions to become a federal state, reflected in the proposed EU constitution, are unacceptable to the vast majority of the British people, and the apparent determination of some other member countries to press forward those ambitions is predictably beginning to provoke a crisis in Britain?s membership of the EU.

Therefore, it is vital in my opinion that Conservatives, who alone among the parties capable of government can offer leadership on this issue, are completely clear. Such a federal state cannot include Britain. We cannot participate, either through a constitution or the single currency, in the drive to create a political union.

A fundamental revision of the EU treaties will be necessary to place our relationship with the EU on a more acceptable footing based on trade, with repatriated powers in substantial areas now within the EU sphere.

At the next general election I believe that Conservative pledge will resonate with people. No government has ever been elected with so clear a commitment to restore our sovereignty and rebalance our relationship with the EU in the national interest.

It will take considerable courage and political vision to achieve. Above all, it will take the willingness of all those who believe in the existence and primacy of the nation to unite and give such a government a chance.

Geoffrey Cox

Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for West Devon and Torridge

LET?S put the June election results into perspective!

Out of every hundred of the British people eligible to vote, six were interested or motivated enough to protest about our EU membership by voting for UKIP. Out of the forty of every hundred electors who actually did vote for any party, more than eighty per cent of them voted for parties which want us to stay in the EU.

In the local elections in England and Wales on the same day, voters were quite able to distinguish local issues from EU ones. In these elections UKIP won two council seats and two London Assembly seats out of the six thousand or so seats won by the candidates from other parties. Some UKIP victory!

Noël Thompson

Brentor Road, Mary Tavy

IN response to the letter from Robert W Lloyd (June 24) reference the UKIP: Can someone help me to sort some things out in my head?

The UKIP?s main issue is to have independence for Britain; it says it in the name, this much I understand. So, they want Britain to withdraw from Europe.

So why have they put candidates forward to become MEPs (members of the European parliament, yes?)? And so getting involved in something they are completely opposed to; a body they don?t want to recognise.

In my eyes, compromising one?s principles to get publicity and power (and to take a salary from somewhere where you don?t think money should be going) sounds like double standards.

Amy Wilson

concerned for the welfare of humankind 17 year old

AS much as I agree with the views of Kilroy-Silk and the UK Independence Party I?m afraid that dreams of an EU-free Britain as we once were in those ?good old days? really are just pipe-dreams.

At the moment, just over three million jobs are dependent on the EU and it is calculated that if we withdraw our EU membership one third of those jobs will disappear, doubling our national unemployment.

Also, it is very obvious that if we withdraw Brussells will make sure that British companies are disadvantaged commercially when trading with EU members, so the remaining two million plus jobs would also be in jeopardy.

Not a very good scenario, to be sure.

B Langman

39 Cornwall Street

Bere Alston