Brighton's Labour MPs David Lepper and Desmond Turner have betrayed their constituents by voting against a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty which their party had promised.

They have also betrayed them by going along with Labour's insistence that the treaty is different from the constitution when even their own party's parliamentary committee and numerous EU leaders have confirmed it is substantially the same.

A recent YouGov poll showed that 94 per cent of the British public think it is same and a recent poll in ten constituencies confirmed that 84 per cent of those who voted want a referendum.

From Ted Heath onwards, politicians have lied to us about the EU.

Napoleon failed, the Kaiser failed, Hitler failed, but our politicians have allowed Britain to be controlled by an unelected, unaccountable and undemocratic Brussells bureaucracy which MEPs are unlikely to do much about.

The EU has largely destroyed our fishing industry and burdened farming and small businesses with ludicrous regulations that have finished off thousands of small family firms.

We are unable to control immigration from poorer parts of the EU. We contribute far more to the EU than we ever get out of it. The "heart of Europe" argument falls down as we are just one of 27 members, each with their own national agenda which may be contra to our interests.

We buy far more from the EU than they buy from us so they are unlikely cut off their nose to spite their face if we negotiated the same free-trade, non-political association that Switzerland and Norway have.

Our only hope now is the House of Lords where Labour does not have a majority and the Irish, whose constitution obliges a referendum.

This vital issue for British freedom must not be swept under the carpet as Labour hopes. We must continue to pester anti-referendum MPs, contact members of the House of Lords and, above all, keep this issue in the public eye before it is too late.

  • Ian Harris, High Street, Bognor