• IT pays to look closely at the origins of the European Union and how it has moved to its present form.

Along the way, we had Heath declining, despite concern from his own minister Geoffrey Rippon, to inform the British public of what was on the cards while we were constantly assured there would be no loss of sovereignty.

Jimmy Goldsmith’s Referendum Party was ridiculed for its various warnings. Now look how the EU now demands its own army!

I have witnessed the apparently irreversible march from trading entity to political behemoth, with treaties that clearly outweighed any so-called sovereignty of parliament going hand in glove with its move to a dismissive all-powerful political control over the peoples of Europe.

Voting for the likes of Nigel Farage – a courageous MEP voice in the wilderness – was a chance to show we were not all supine supporters of this ever-evolving empire that sought precedence over our centuries-old society, its boundaries and its laws.

Sorry, but that’s not what my father’s generation sacrificed so much for.

As for the money for the NHS, we are still in the EU for the next two years and will be obliged to defer to the debilitating cost and conditions of membership until we have finally discarded both.

MARK NEWBERRY, W1