If the opinion polls are to be believed

Before we all get carried away thinking that we will have a say on the future of our membership of the European Union, I would urge your readers not to be fooled by what he had to say, after all we’ve been there before with his broken promises of a referendum over the Lisbon Treaty.

To remind readers, this is the same David Cameron who said the UK would only leave the EU over his dead body!

The real truth behind this speech is the threat from UKIP and the exodus of support from the Conservative Party to UKIP which was threatening his very existence as PM.

I for one am not fooled by Cameron’s empty promises.

He expects this nation to wait another five years before we can decide our future in Europe.

Why not now?

Five years is a long time for the EU to mobilise its resources in order to dissuade us from voting to leave.

The dirty tricks machine in Brussels will be on overdrive.

Do the people in this country honestly believe the EU is going to let us walk away without a fight?

We are after all one of the main contributors to the EU budget.

EU membership is not an a la carte menu where we can pick and choose what we want from Europe.

The EU does not give up powers taken away from its member states so any thoughts of a renegotiation of our membership are quite fanciful.

In the meantime thousands of Romanians and Bulgarians are preparing to flood this country next year, putting an even heavier burden on our public services.

There is already much discontent being voiced by local people in towns like Bognor Regis and Littlehampton about the level of Eastern Europeans residing here.

How are our already overstretched public services like hospitals, schools, social services and housing going to cope?

Then there’s the question as to how prepared these people would be to vote for Britain leaving the EU.

In the five years we have to wait for this promised referendum there could possibly be a change of government who will scrap the referendum.

In the meantime the EU could of course speed up its regionalisation programme, or, as I would prefer to call it, a divide and conquer programme.

France and Germany are good at that!

Member states as we know them would disappear and the map of Europe would be re-drawn to consist of a map of the regions. How then are we as a nation going to be able to organise a referendum?

Graham Jones,

Manor Way

Elmer Sands