IF the United Kingdom signs up to European monetary union we will lose a crucial element of our sovereignty.

Large numbers of leading businessman in this country now agree we will end up paying higher taxes and become poorer as a result. I remain opposed to this foolhardy experiment.

One only has to look at how the Common Agriculture Policy has been operated by Europe to see what little faith could be vested in the European Union's competence to manage a central government, bank or currency.

These would all be necessary for a single currency to work effectively and sound public finances to be managed.

Some hope of that! Opinion polls demonstrate a massive 65 per cent consider themselves British not European.

From this alone we can see that loyalties lie with the United Kingdom and the British way of life with all its institutions.

The risks involved in replacing our existing institutions with great untried monoliths in Brussels and Frankfurt are huge, and I am convinced would show no benefit.

The people of this country should be alerted to the dangerous road down which they are being led.

If we risk taking part in this project we would no longer be an independent nation state with the power to decide on our own economic policy.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.