Congratulations on your splendid We Back British Beef campaign, which should benefit producers, consumers and the local economy. We would also buy far more British apples, which grow well in Cornwall, instead of the 300,000 tons of French apples that we import every year.

The French ban on British beef is a reminder that the so-called 'single market', which we were told is the basis of the European union, is a nonsense, and the EU is really a way of the Germans and French increasing their exploitation of us.

This applies to takeovers as well as to trade. SWEB is owned by Electricite de France (which has also bought London Electricity). Since Electricite de France is a French Government-owned monopoly, there is no possibility that any British company could take over any French supplier of electricity. Likewise your new Rover, Land Rover or MG is a BMW, but can you imagine any British company being allowed to take over Renault or Volkswagen?

Before Edward Heath gave away our sovereignty by signing the Treaty of Rome, we fully controlled our own fisheries, which were 80 per cent of European fisheries. At the last moment before this treachery, the Franco-Germans, barely able to believe that our Government would be so mad as to give away our superb assets, changed their rules to grab our fisheries.

Our membership of the 'single market' was symbolised by a single postal rate for letters to any part of the European Union. Early last year that single rate split into 26p in the UK, 30p Europe (coyly disguised by a Capital E instead of the 30p being stated on the stamp). Now widened to 26p UK, 34p Europe.

The economic and political reality is that Britain is not part of Europe, but is a global trading nation. The sooner we end our humiliating and self-destructive membership of the EU, the better.

KEITH BRIAN

Cornwall.