CORRESPONDENT Ms E Whittaker (HAS, July 17) suggests I ask the Minister for Europe for information regarding the "amending treaty" on the European Union. I know from experience any reply would be the standard propaganda hiding the true purpose of the EU.

I am aware of the text of the constitution/amendment to the treaty of European Union and I'm aware of what politicians from other member states are saying.

The EU is all about political union, always has been, always will be, yet our politicians continue to deny this (unlike other EU politicians) as they know we don't want this, so they portray the EU as mere co-operation on the topic of the day, be it economics, terrorism, crime or environment.

Europe is a great and diverse continent. I enjoy travelling to Europe and expanding my linguistic abilities. Few people are smallminded enough to hate "Europe" as pro-EU people sometimes suggest.

We just reject the notion of the political union of so many diverse countries, in a very corrupt and inefficient system of government.

And we would appreciate our MPs, 98 per cent of whom were elected on this promise, to stick to their word and give us a referendum.

Jamie Mash, UK Indpendence Party, Northallerton, North Yorkshire.

FROM the tone of her letter, it would appear that Ms E Whittaker (HAS, July 17) was deeply involved in the latest round of European Union Treaty negotiations.

Is that the case, or are her views based on what our political leaders choose to tell us?

The EU achieved its present dominant position purely by deceit.

We in the UK were deceived when Ted Heath took us into the Common Market, which was supposedly only to do with trade. We were deceived again when, under Harold Wilson, we voted to stay in the "trade only"

Common Market. To my chagrin, I voted yes.

Since then, the "Common Market"

has developed into the EU, which is exerting ever more control over our lives without us ever being allowed a democratic vote on the matter.

I, for one, am now absolutely sick and tired of being cheated, deceived and lied to by a succession of prime ministers and governments.

Yet our local MPs, who are our elected representatives at Westminster, continue to allow this to happen.

Why? Will one of them at least have the goodness to explain their standpoint?

John Routledge, Witton Gilbert, Durham.