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		Letter to the Editor Wednesday 15th September 2004 Dear Sir, Two cheers for Gordon Brown. He has pointed out, quite rightly, that the EU's poor economic performance, its self-inflicted stagnation, have now reached a point where they threaten to destabilise the global economy. High taxes, unaffordable levels of welfare spending and massively rigid labour markets are stifling competitiveness. To spare the blushes of colleagues from other member-states, Brown fails to mention another factor: the single currency. By imposing a rigid interest rate on diverse economies, the euro is a major contributor to the EU's problems. Nor does he mention that if we in Britain sign the EU Constitution, as he seems to want us to do, we shall be locked in permanently to the EU's failing social model, with dire consequences for British jobs and prosperity. Brown has the right diagnosis, but the wrong prescription. He seems to think that with a new effort at reform, one more push, we can deliver the competitive Europe of the Lisbon agenda. But we have been trying and failing to reform the EU for thirty years. How many more decades must we keep flogging a dead horse? We have to face the fact that the EU is beyond reform. It is time to put it out of its misery. Yours faithfully, Roger Helmer MEP