Jones's blinkered pro-EU speech missed a chance

She writes: "I made the point that a campaign now to withdraw from Europe would not help (working-class) unity. It would be dominated by the right whipping up xenophobia and nationalism."

Elaine, like Nelson before her, holds a telescope up to see only what she wants to see.

I only hope she flicked to pages six and seven of the same edition, which features the struggle against the EU and austerity in Spain, Greece and Portugal each organised by unions either stridently EU critical or completely in favour of exit.

I looked across Europe in vain to find a mass workers struggle led by the kind of xenophobes she warns of and could not find one.

Her letter demonstrates a fear of engaging with the vast bulk of organised workers in Britain who are opposed to the EU.

If our unions will not speak out against Monti II, austerity, federal institutions which sap our democratic rights, the common agricultual and fisheries policies, pan-Euro armies intervening in the Middle East and making rapacious land grabs in Africa, then we can hardly be surprised when others speak in their place.

Whether she likes it or not, all of that goes with membership of the EU club. Elaine had that choice to speak out against that and did not.

Phil Katz

Great Cambourne