FEAR of the European bogeyman certainly helped the party which calls itself UKIP. The Europe-haters now have 12 MEPs in, of all places, the European Parliament.

What pungent irony. A single-issue party which campaigns on pulling Britain out of the EU is sending 12 new MEPs to Europe. Presumably they will refuse to accept the high wages or the generous expenses.

This disputatious dozen, unexpectedly propelled to Europe on the back of a tin-pot protest group grown suddenly large, claim they will rubbish Europe and everything it stands for.

Robert Kilroy-Silk (how it pains the fingers to type those aggravating letters), the former Labour MP and onetime TV talk show host, says he and his fellow UKIP MEPs will expose the EU "for the waste, the corruption and the way it's eroding our sovereignty".

All of this is familiar stuff. It's a shame to see the back-room grumbling of the small-minded Europe haters writ so large; but that's our lot for now, until UKIP, with luck, fades at the General Election. Besides, this isn't what interests me here. I don't really get the endless fretting and ferreting about Europe, the Little Englander moaning about foreigners and their tricky ways. If nothing else, a strong European Union has stopped us fighting wars with each other, which must count for something.

More fruitful to consider the supposed threat of Europe against other, often unseen, menaces. These take any number of forms, from unfeeling multi-national companies making distant decisions, to febrile interest rates; from all-power supermarket groups, to a world dominated by one top-heavy super power led by a heavy-handed born-again Christian.

Perhaps such threats, or what I worry may be threats, are too vague to shape into an easy target. But just consider the way Kraft, an uncaring multi-national, is about to close Terry's in York without any thought to the local consequences.

Consider, too, big supermarkets that control almost everything we eat. I should say the bosses of Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury and the rest have more influence over our lives than any European bureaucrat. Some of it may even be a good influence, but there is huge, unchallenged power in the way the supermarkets flatter and fool us into buying everything under the one huge roof. And, yes, I'm as bad as the next stressed-out trolley filler; where else is there to go?

Consider, too, the way our lives are affected by the see-sawing world market - including, as we recently saw, the trade in the oil that powers just about everything we depend on.

Thanks to the vagaries of interest rates, our mortgages can shoot up at will. Even the Governor of the Bank of England is warning people not to buy houses at the moment because prices could drop.

Buying a house in this country has become a branch of the gambling industry. You put your money on Bricks And Mortar, running in the 25-year hurdle. You have no idea what interest rates/stakes will do over the years, so cross your fingers.

Or you take out an endowment mortgage without anyone explaining that this is in effect a bet on how share prices will do over the next quarter of a century. True, a lot of people have done very well out of property; but what an unstable, potentially risky way it is to put a roof over our heads.

Many pensions are linked to shares too, so our reclining years are in the hands of the market. Up, down or bust - who really knows until retirement day arrives?

Everyone is so obsessed with business these days. Since the Eighties, it has become the norm to assume that business has the answer to every possible prayer. We all have to make a living, it's true. I wouldn't be spouting forth here if the Evening Press didn't make money.

It's just that business has become the only way to look at everything. In the end so much business is tied into the skittering, touchy market that shoots up or down at will, amassing or losing fortunes in the blink of a young market trader's bloodshot eye.

Now that's a lot more scary than the EU.

Updated: 09:28 Thursday, June 17, 2004