IN REPLY to the letters from Peter Ross and Roland Hobden on Brexit.

It is nice of Peter to agree with my comments, however it was probably not Edward Heath – which is why we need the public enquiry.

Ted Heath did deceive the nation by not mentioning we were members of EFTA (European Free Trade Association) which we had to damage and leave to join the EEC.

That organisation included Canada. It was also suggested we would not be able to trade worldwide due to oil shortages, then we had North Sea oil.

It was the Government of John Major which signed the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 which removed “economic” from the Treaty of Rome’.

That was after the signing of GAT which was at odds with the protected markets of the EEC, thereby destroying the EEC’s basic function.

The EU came into being in secret and was made formal when the 2009 Treaty of Lisbon was signed under Gordon Brown.

That renamed the Treaty of Rome to The Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union.

It was the John Major Government which tried for monetary union via “the snake” and we first saw the European Union flag and had an attempt at a European constitution.

This Government has already said it would put an act before Parliament to remove the need for UK law to reflect the EU Commission’s decisions.

That should be enough.

We cannot pass a bill tying the Government to exit terms under the EU rules. The other 27 countries have to agree terms with the UK.

They will not discuss those terms prior to the UK PM signing Article 50.

To issue rigid terms to the EU would become an ultimatum from the UK Parliament.

Once we leave – two years after signing Article 50 – any government can strengthen or weaken UK access to the EU single market.

As we will not leave until 2019 and a general election is due in 2020, any party which wants to make changes can say so in the election and are then free to do so if elected.

The only decision able to go before Parliament would be permission to sign Article 50, not the terms of exit, although at the end of the two years the deal on offer from the EU could be put to MPs.

Hard to see where that would go if rejected as signing Article 50 is irreversible.

The referendum wording was agreed by MPs from all parties and was issued as binding, so Roland is very incorrect.

R P Lambeth, Martin Road, Hove