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		Letter to the Editor Leicester Mercury - Wednesday, 9th August 2006 Dear Sir, Eddie Sentance (Mailbox, Aug 2nd) says he'd rather see the EU flag flying over our town hall than the Stars and Stripes. But that isn't the choice, Eddie. The real question is whether we want the Union Jack or the EU flag. Whether we want to be an independent, self-governing nation, or an off-shore province of a country called Europe, ruled from Brussels. He says that I have "a phobia about all things European". Nonsense. I'm very fond of Europe. I spend most of my working life there. I love the culture, the cooking, the countryside. But I am opposed to the European Union as a model of governance, because as my colleague Dan Hannan MEP says, it is making us poorer, and less democratic, and less free. It is a backward-facing, inward-looking protectionist racket, and we have had enough of it. Roger Helmer Conservative MEP for Leicestershire