LAST week, the Conservative Party called for less red tape and regulation in business. The Federation of Small Businesses added to the debate with its national policy chairman, John Walker, complaining (correctly) of encouraging words in the past from our politicians, but no delivery on the now vast regulatory burden.

The reason for lack of action at Westminster is that by far the bulk of law that impacts on business comes in the form of EU regulations and directives.

EU regulations have "direct effect". They become law the moment they are made in Brussels and do not require transposition into British law. Usually, they are very precise, leaving little room for interpretation by our politicians.

As to EU directives, most come through the EU law-making system as "framework directives" giving power for the European Council or the Commission to make more EU regulations which, in turn, become law in the UK without any Parliamentary debate.

Lobbying in Brussels is complex with only huge business organisations with hundreds of millions of pounds of resources having any practical chance of influencing.

All our politicians can do is offer encouraging words; they do not have the power to change the greatest of all barriers to business growth.

Peter Troy, Sedgefield, Co Durham.

THERE have been many examples of how people don't like outsiders dictating to them what they can and cannot do. Now, Belgium, the model for the European Union, is in danger of splitting in two.

Before 1830 there was no such country. Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia were merged by the "international powers" as a political compromise and experiment in building one state out of two nationalities.

The capital, Brussels, is historically Dutch-speaking, but has been deliberately "Frenchified" by encouraging immigration from former French North Africa colonies in an attempt to force the Flemings into an ever-shrinking minority position.

These tactics are now backfiring.

Flemish-speaking areas are seeking independence from Belgium. Recent polls revealed even those Flemings, who do not aim (yet) for downright independence, want to reduce Belgium to a confederation of two almost independent states.

Belgium's problems have been almost totally ignored by the UK media. All three mainstream British political parties remain committed to taking Great Britain into a European Superstate.

News about the unravelling of Belgium, therefore, needs to be kept quiet in case it encourages Britons to start to question the need to submerge our nationality and culture into a failing European Superstate.

Councillor Stephen Allison, UK Independence Party, Hartlepool.