Two Wrights get it so wrong over Europe

Britain may be an island but our history emphatically denies that it is isolated from Europe.

Those of us who live in York, as distinct from Easingwold, see evidence of this all around us, the statue of a Roman Emperor, a Norman castle, our Minster with much building during the reign of the French Plantagenets, the Georgian Assembly Rooms (George I came from Hanover).

Today our universities have a large number of students from many European countries benefiting from the city's international atmosphere.

It is no accident that Britain's Millennium personality was Shakespeare who was a truly European writer, many of his greatest plays have a European setting, the Tempest in Italy, the Midsummer Night's Dream in Athens to name but a couple.

The runner-up in the choice of listeners was Winston Churchill, a Great Britain and European, who realised that the horrific wars of this century arising out of the rivalry of the European powers in which Britain inevitably came to be involved, must be redirected.

At the height of the war in 1942 he suggested a council of all European nations as one solution.

Many of my generation who were in the services believed Churchill was right: the mere independence of Britain would not ensure the end of conflict, only co-operation would bring stability and prosperity.

I see the European Union as the achievement of our goal. Of course, it has faults but it has brought about the end of the Iron Curtain and the Czechs, the Hungarians and the Poles are desperate to join and achieve stability.

The single market and currency has ended old and fruitless rivalries and will so end the spectre of future wars and conflict.

Outside Euroland we will be powerless to influence monetary policy which will directly affect us and our own multi-national companies, the largest employers will be trading in the new currency.

Richard O Whiting,

Redman Close,

Fulford,

York.

...David Wright of Easingwold asserts that those who died in the two world wars did so to protect the freedom and independence of this country.

I would not presume to guess what their motives were, but I am sure that many of them had broader horizons than those.

There seems to be a common belief that if you support the European Union, your patriotism is suspect.

One can be a denizen of York, a Tyke, an Englishman, a British subject and a good European citizen without any moral dilemma at all. Barbara Wright, also of Easingwold, goes so far as to deny her country's geography.

Like it or not, Great Britain IS part of the European continent, and bar towing it out to sea there's not much to be done about it.

I wonder what she means when she says we weren't meant to be Europeans?

Did a slip of the Almighty hand prevent us from becoming part of North America?

Andy Baldock,

Villa Grove,

Heworth Green,

York.

...The letters from David and Barbara Wright clearly demonstrate that in the pages of the Evening Press at least, two Wrights make a wrong. David Wright should also look to his history books.

The Second World War was not fought to "safeguard the independence of and freedom of this country".

It was fought to free Europe from Nazi oppression.

His history books will remind him that the fight was fought by people of all nationalities - including all European nationalities.

If Barbara Wright would like to take a look at her history books she will read that our island race is made up of the most remarkable cocktail of Europeans: Roman, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, Normans to name a few.

Commentators like Sir Winston Churchill suggested that the historic strength of the "British Identity" lies in its very diversity.

The fact that more recent contributors to the cocktail do not have blond hair and blue eyes makes them no less an important and welcome part of the mix.

The Maitland Family,

Uppleby,

Easingwold.

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