DESPITE William Hague's tendency to flag down any passing bandwagon, he is right in one respect - the coming General Election will be our last chance to send MPs to a Westminster Parliament that can decide how our country is run.

If New Labour is given a second term, or even if the Conservatives just scrape home, we can look forward to still more of our democratic rights being replaced by diktat from the European Union.

We know where New Labour (and their Liberal Democrat sidekicks) stand on further EU integration. The threat posed to the UK by re-joining EMU and then adopting the Euro is fairly obvious so, in order to prevent an outcry before the Election, we have been promised a referendum later on.

But far more insidious is New Labour's policy of creating regional assemblies without mentioning that it is actually EU policy that they are implementing. The reason that England is not allowed to have its own parliament/assembly, like Scotland or Wales, is that it is to be split up into seven regions.

The administration for this is in place now, as each area has a "Regional Government Agency" already in place. The current stage is to put in the direct links to Brussels, which is why "regional offices" are being opened there.

Numerous non-political organisations across the UK are now being encouraged to apply for "EU" grants through these offices. Although it seems to be a good idea to try an obtain money from the EU, by using these new links, we should realise that we are simply getting a little bit of our own money back from the £31m we give to Brussels each day!

However, once our representatives in industry or local government abandon the normal avenues for obtaining financial assistance or representation, in favour of working through these Regional Offices, then our locally-elected councils, and our national parliament, will become increasingly irrelevant.

The only legal way of regaining British sovereignty is to withdraw from the EU and then renegotiate trade agreements with our continental neighbours.

R G SPENCER, Malvern.