MY views run contrary to those of Rob Merrick in his column about the EU Treaty (Echo, Sept 13).

For a start, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown say the new draft is essentially different from the original and no red lines will be crossed.

Yet Angela Merkel, Bertie Ahern and the French president involved at the outset, say otherwise. Mr Brown, one month before his premiership, was also in favour of a referendum before his Damascene conversion.

The Labour manifesto also promised a vote on this issue.

Unlike Mr Merrick, I do not need to read the treaty minutes to recognise increasing EU involvement in our affairs.

I remember when it was just the Common Market, which most people believed would be a loose federation of countries to improve trading links and not the behemoth it is becoming.

Mr Merrick says that decisions should be left to Parliament. Well, it seems to me, that successive governments have tried to fight the EU juggernaut without success, so our leadership should be left in no doubt as to the will of the people.

The reason Mr Brown is stalling on a vote is because he knows it will derail this monster, nothing to do with its complexity.

Thomas Ferguson, Billingham.