IN reply to Mr Goodwin?s letter (February 20) in which he says he ?Doesn?t know why the UKIP is anti-EU?, I will tell him.

Perhaps he has a short memory or is very young, or both. But I remember well the day we were tricked into voting to join the Common Market by Mr Heath, (remember him?). He simultaneously put the lights out all over the UK and gave away our fishing industry.

Since that day the influence of what we all thought was a simple trading agreement has spread like a malignant growth into every aspect of our lives ? even to how we weigh our fruit and veg. There is no need to elaborate. And what is this costing us? Something over one million pounds for every hour of every day! What do we get in return? Not a lot.

We get a Mr Kinnock (remember him?) He was the highly paid Euro Minister in charge of transport who proved himself useless when the French were destroying our lamb exports. We get grants for tarting up our town and village centres (a fraction of our payments) and miles and miles ? or kilometres ? of red tape, whichever way we turn. And constant lists of entirely unnecessary restriction from our so called partners.

There was once talk of a Eurofighter, a state of the art aircraft. Where is it? My guess is that if it ever gets off the ground, small boys will be asking, ?Dad, what?s that funny old aeroplane?? And now ? wait for it ? there is talk of a Euro Navy! Can you imagine it? I can?t.

Face figures, if not facts, Britain is economically the strong man of Europe, Germany the sick man. Their interest rates and unemployment figures are rising by the day ? solely because of the Euro. As for France, we don?t know and wouldn?t believe them if they told us.

Are we really contemplating closer ties with these people? Why? These two countries have recently ganged up on our PM to scupper his attempt to reach agreement in the Iraq crisis. No matter what our views on Iraq, the second letter in EU stands for union. I don?t see much unity, do you?

A word of advice for Mr Goodwin ? and Blair and Co ? take down your family Bible, look up the parable of the ?Tower of Babel?, read and inwardly digest. And for Heaven?s sake think before it is too late.

A member of the UKIP

Name and address supplied