I WOULD like to respond to D E Margrett's immensely condescending letter (You Say, July 17) in which he accused me of being "suited" to a Harry Potter production.

During the last 12 years I have worked in many European countries, including France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Italy, Holland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Ireland.

I have also during this time worked in the USA, the West Indies, and South Africa. I have not by any means "been everywhere" but I think I've seen a bit of the world. And yes, Mr Margrett, I know all about Adolf Hitler and his expansionist policies, even though I was born 15 years after the end of the Second World War.

My experiences have led me to be very much in favour of the European Economic Community and very much against the European Union.

In case anybody is unsure of the difference, the EEC is a trading block which the UK voted to remain a member of in 1975, the EU is a European Federalist political project to which nobody in this country has been invited to express their opinion concerning membership thereof by means of a referendum.

I have seen people in Europe on average incomes crushed by 55 - 60 per cent income tax. I have personally experienced the conduct of my business being encumbered by masses of European bureaucracy, and I have seen the general malaise of people and businesses in the "EU".

I am not racist and I am not anti-European. My grandfather was Belgian and I have many friends and associates in continental Europe. It simply must be made clear that the EU is not Europe, the EU is a political enterprise intended to create a federal United States of Europe.

GARY WEBB,

Bath Road, Worcester.