R G SPENCER recently (You Say, April) told us that Brussels wishes to see a Europe of regions by 2009 - eight years time.

However, was it not recently agreed at Nice, with Tony Blair in attendance, that the final stages of putting together a European state, with its own constitution, would be completed in only three years time?

To belong to this state one must of course surrender one's currency and power of running one's own economy and levels of taxation. Do we want this? I would suggest that this is the real reason why Tony Blair is, right now, preparing the ground and pushing us to abandon the pound and adopt the euro.

Tony Blair, being Tony Blair, will not of course, come clean and admit this. We must not allow ourselves to be pushed by political stealth and skulduggery. Without the United Kingdom the EU could well collapse - but so be it.

If it didn't and we were outside we could quite easily stand on our own feet, as both Norway and Switzerland are doing. We must remain a sovereign state - forever and a day.

E F SHOWELL, Fernhill Heath, Worcester