Incompatible
Sir : He who does not now see that our main economic difficulties stem from the attempt to incorporate the UK in a system which does not suit its requirements surely has his belfry infested and not with cuckoos. What Mr Powell pointed out in the middle of the wild speculation about an imminent fall of the Callaghan administration was that there is no great virtue in a change of government for the sake of change. After all, the electorate has been swinging from side to side ever since the war, presumably in the search for capable government. They have on each occasion been cruelly deceived. None of the changes of government has produced any alteration in the general direction of policy —at any rate not for long. The decline has gone on unabated regardless of which party held office.
There is no reason why this country, properly managed, should not be as prosperous as Sweden or Switzerland. There is no chance that it can be, however, as a province of a European state. The essential condition is what both Sweden and Switzerland refused to surrender --independence.
As things are there is no hope that we can cure our economic ills unless the EEC is altered out of all recognition to suit our needs or unless we leave it. Anybody who supposes that the first alternative is likely will believe anything. Anybody who believes that the rump of the Heath administration led by Margaret Thatcher would take us out of the EEC is equally credulous.
On the other hand opposition to EEC membership remains Labour Party policy whatever Mr Wilson may have contrived to do before he skipped, leaving others to face the consequences. It is not impossible that the gulf between the Labour Party in th6 country and the PLP will be closed. Some of those who have supposed that they have a divine right to do as they please are already being removed. If the Labour Government came to represent the views of the ordinary Labour voter, as no Labour government yet has, the Labour Party would be a very different institution. Its attitude to the EEC would, for example, be more realistic and clear-sighted. It is not impossible either that it would be expressing views about immigration some way in advance of anything Mr Powell has yet said. K. L. Bailey 9 Sundridge Parade, Bromley, Kent
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