YOUR correspondent from UKIP (letters 18 Feb) tells us we were right to leave the EU because of the Covid vaccine,"a prime example of why the EU should not be allowed anywhere near deciding issues of national importance".

Of course, this is a one-sided right-wing viewpoint that misses the true lessons of history.

Leaving the EU was not a good move and UK vaccine policy would not have been dictated by the EU had we stayed.

Instead, Brexit has handed this country over to its right-wing politicians who have always failed us badly.

The very first Tory administration under Robert Harley brought us international disgrace by leaving wartime allies in the lurch and then creating the slave-trading South Sea Company, famously resulting in the economic crisis known as the South Sea Bubble.

Perhaps the greatest disaster English right-wing politicians achieved was what George III expected would be "a few bloody noses".

The resulting American War of Independence did nobody any good and made enemies of our American cousins for over a century.

Now Brexit threatens the integrity of the UK itself.

In truth, the Scots would be mad to vote for independence, but English right-wing politicians seem maddening enough to drive them to it.

That's democracy.

So perhaps we should all be a lot more careful how we vote.

Dr Martin Rodger

Parkstone