SIR – David Barlow is being facetious again (Letters, November 3). If he really wants an answer to his question as to why the three main political parties appear to be in favour of continued membership of the EEC why doesn’t he do the obvious thing and ask them rather than those of us who he knows can see no justifiable reason for it?

Perhaps Mr Barlow should also ask the Government why they continue to refuse to hold the referendum they previously promised on membership under the supposedly amended new constitution, which was nothing but a re-worded version of the existing one and fools no one.

We know the reason – they know they will lose the vote, just as the Irish government recently did and before that the Dutch and French.

As someone once famously said: “You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

DEREK BADDELEY,

Malvern.