Brian Parker, of Cross­parks, Dartmouth, writes:

It is not often that the Chronicle misses a trick on reporting significant events in Dartmouth. But, except in Nicko Franks’ letter last week, it has done so in not mentioning MP Sarah Wollaston’s February 26 meeting in the Guildhall, at which hundreds turned up to hear and contribute views on the EU referendum.

Dr Wollaston handled this massed meeting with consummate skill, in good voice without a microphone, and gave detailed and knowledgeable answers

to the many questions. Most impressive.

A disadvantage of a meeting with so many attending and wishing to contribute is that it was difficult to hold a topic and follow it through.

One such was the expressed view that the underlying reason for setting up the European Economic Community back in 1957 was to so bind together France and Germany, which had been at each other’s throats for two or more centuries with various Franco-Prussian wars, in the belief that common ­economic interests would make another war between them near impossible.

And so it has turned out, and we can be grateful for that.

This point is also made in Kevin Pyne’s letter last week. But all is decidedly not rosy.

The transformation from EEC to EC to the political EU could be considered disastrous. Its expansion eastwards, ­culminating in ill-judged overtures to Ukraine, has produced a situation in which war is ­closer now than at any time since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Students of Eastern European history understand the sensitivity that Russia has with regards to those areas ­outside its borders that have Russian ethnicity and historical connections to the motherland.

A decade ago I had an international sporting colleague from Dnipropetrovsk in East Ukraine who had served as a Red Army officer. He said he and his neighbours were Russian at heart but also loyal citizens of Ukraine. He has since died, so I cannot ask him about his loyalties today.

It seems that the West European nations have been rather flat-footed in handling the delicate matter of Ukraine. It is all very well heaping all the blame on an aggressive President Putin, but if you act incautiously and needle an unrestrained bear so that it comes at you and you get mauled, some responsibility has to be yours.

So, how does this reflect on Britain’s membership of the EU? It can be pertinently said that the EU, due to its number of states – currently 28, with several more lining up to join – is about as effective in terms of political influence as the League of Nations was and the UN is.

Could it be in our and the world’s interests to cut loose from this poorly led and ­dangerously ineffective collection of states? You might argue that, on the issue of in or out, Britain, with its rich history of diplomacy at the highest levels, can make a better contribution to world affairs when not ­diluted by the other 27.