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		Letter to the Editor Leicester Mercury - Monday 1st August 2005 Dear Sir Collis Gretton of the European Movement (Mercury Mailbox, 29 July 29) concedes that Britain's economy took off after Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979, but then, bizarrely, claims that "it would not have done so but for our membership of the EU". How does he explain the dire economic performance of other major EU countries like France, Germany and Italy? How come European countries not in the EU, like Norway, Switzerland and Iceland, are much richer than EU countries? He says that I am "embarrassed" that Margaret Thatcher signed the Single European Act. Not at all. She rightly saw the benefits of trade in the Single Market, but (as she would be the first to admit) failed to realise the extent of the damaging integration that went with it. Peter Valentine (July 30th) makes a similar error. He points out that the benefits of the Single Market (on some estimates) amount to 2 1/2% of GDP for the UK. But he fails to mention that estimates of the cost of the EU's grossly excessive regulation range from 4% of GDP upwards. A raft of heavyweight economic analyses suggest that the economic effect of withdrawal from the EU would range from neutral to strongly positive. EU membership is bad for the British economy. Valentine refers to the "Tory/Central group in the European parliament". But no such group exists. Conservatives sit with the leftist, federalist EPP (Christian Democrat) group. Many Conservatives, and several Tory MEPs including myself and my East Midlands colleague Chris Heaton-Harris MEP, believe we should not sit with the federalists, and are actively campaigning to form a real Conservative group in the parliament. Yours faithfully Roger Helmer MEP (Conservative, E Midlands)