Having read Stephen Hart's letter (Postbag, December 1), I feel compelled to reply to several points that he made.

1. He is the Labour Parliamentary spokesman for the Leominster constituency and maybe this explains why he seems not to have noticed the decline in farming in this country over the last 20 years. Has he been living on the moon, or, being a Labour politician has he just turned a blind eye to the plight of country dwellers? He states that farming has been kept going in Western Europe by the European Unions policy of self-sufficiency. He obviously has not noticed the depressed state of British farming, nor that our farmers are actually encouraged by the EU not to be self-sufficient. Two examples of this are milk quotas restraining milk production, and "set-aside" to reduce our arable output. Many farmers now rely on handouts from Brussels but they would rather be payed a decent price for the goods that they produce. The Common Agricultural Policy has been a disaster for British farming.

2. I have been waiting for some time for someone to put forward a decent argument for our continued membership of the European Union. Well, Stephen Hart seems to come up with it! He stated "Agreement has been reached to allow parents of abducted children to go to court in their own EU country rather than in a different one". This a good agreement, but could it not have been reached without the EU? And surely it needs to be worldwide anyway.

3. He stated that "through the single market we have been able to get our beef accepted in the EU". No, sorry! The French won't have it, and, even though our beef is now the safest in Europe, our beef sales there are still very small. Interesting that when we had a major BSE problem, it was the "British problem". Now that France has a BSE problem (we have always suspected that they had more than they have ever admitted to) it is a "European problem".

4. He stated "Under the EU, we have had very nearly 60 years' peace in Western Europe". Wrong again! Firstly, the Common Market, as it was originally known, only started in 1957 - with six countries! Secondly, it is generally agreed by modern day historians that peace in Europe has been kept by NATO.

Stephen Hart must have a low impression of the intelligence of the general public if he thinks they will swallow this distortion of the facts. Meet my challenge and give us a real reason for our continued membership of the European Union.

Richard Chamings, UK Independence Party,

Storridge, Malvern.

(via e-mail)