RICHARD Grant of the LibDems wrote (Echo April 11) that the United Kingdom should be in the European Union, as one of its 27 member states, because “this country has always been European.....as a land mass, we were joined to France’’. That was long in the past – the English Channel and North Sea were formed by global warming ten thousand years ago, and Britain was separated from the European mainland. Since then we have been an island separate from Europe.

This geographical independence lead to our national independence, which allowed the UK to save Europe from itself in 1940, and on previous occasions. Our historic role as the UK has been to save Europe from itself. But bound hand and foot in the EU, our leaders will not be able to do that again. And that act of rescuing Europe – now the EU – from itself, is likely to be necessary in future if history is any guide.

Ralph Prothero, Southampton.