IN REPLY to Liberal supporter Mr Martin Kyle and his jibe at Mrs Broadbridge (Echo Letters, October 16), that the lady was wrong on two accounts, the first was 'being ruled by another country'.

I think Mr Kyrle is really splitting hairs on this subject, a straight answer should have been 'yes, we are ruled by parliament but we are, like all the other countries, nothing more than puppets to the European Union'.

Before any legislation goes through our parliament it has to be vetted to make sure it does not contradict EU laws and legislation, which we are signed up to – in effect we are controlled by Europe in what we say and do.

The other point made by Mr Kyrle is that human rights has nothing to do with the EU, it is due to British law, the Human Rights Act, by our own parliament in 1998, but what Mr Kyrle neglects to say is that the European Convention on Human Rights is an international treaty which was drafted in Europe in 1950 by council of Europe member states who are party to this treaty. After all, we are a founder member, and to put the record straight if a terrorist decides to execute his human rights, parliament has to adhere the European Courts of Justice which is of our own making.

As regards to the EU Parliament, it is no more than a talking shop, the real power of the European Union lies with the undemocratic, unelected Eurocrats in the European Commission whom I call the 'Untouchables' – they make the rules including light bulb designs.

I must apologise to Mr Kyrle for not mentioning 'democrats' with the word 'liberal', I felt it not appropriate because your party does not know the meaning of democracy. If it did, it would practice what its name is and not continually argue against a democratic decision to leave the corrupt European Union.

David Hacking

Southampton