DR Graham Gardner's letter (October 3), in which he claims that “recent letters fingering the EU as the main culprit for post office closures and changes to letter pricing are grossly misleading”, will hardly enhance his reputation as a research fellow.

Had he spent a little longer on his homework, he might have discovered two EU Directives, 97/67/EC and 2002/39/EC, the first of which was responsible for preventing Royal Mail from accepting items weighing more than 350 grams; the second compelling the placing out to private tender of a number of other services that formerly supported so many uneconomic post offices that are now being forced to close.

The good doctor blames New Labour for this debacle whereas, as he should be aware, our puppet government in Westminster had no choice. When its masters in Brussels tell it to “jump” it jumps. If it doesn’t, it can be taken to the European Court and fined. Does he really want to see a British prime minister hauled off under a European arrest warrant, like that unfortunate Australian recently arrested on arrival at Heathrow for alleged ‘Holocaust denial’, that is not a crime in either Australia or Britain?

Such is the result of successive EU treaties, each designed to further the aim expressed in the Treaty of Rome, to promote “ever-closer union” between the members of this political conspiracy that was sold to us as a ‘Common Market’, and has heaped one deceit upon another ever since.

RICHARD SHAW, Evelyn Road, Dunstable.