ACCORDING to Greek mythology the Sirens were dangerous yet beautiful creatures who lured sailors with their enchanting voices to shipwreck on the rocks.

There's something rather enchanting about Mark Harper's claim that only the Tory Party will 'seek to renegotiate our relationship with the EU' (which means he's echoing his master's voice) and only it will 'give the final say on whether to remain a member of the EU on the new terms to the British people in a referendum (before the end of 2017).'

This Tory Party's pledge to hold an EU referendum looks enchanting, largely because of the opaque and absurdly contradictory manoeuvrings of Labour and the Lib Dems on the same crucial subject.

But when you realise that Messrs Cameron and Harper actually want this country to stay in the EU, you realise how low today's Tory Party has sunk, how far it has departed from its historic belief in God, Queen and country: oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive.

It is a deceit for the Tory leadership (represented locally by Mr Harper even though he's resigned from the government) to propagate the belief that 'renegotiation of our relationship with the EU' is possible.

The Treaty of Rome makes it crystal clear that this is out of the question because 'ever closer union' for its members was, and is, its core and single most important objective. Nothing has changed.

For those wanting a contemporary reiteration of this statement of the obvious, here's what Joschka Fischer, former German foreign minister, said last January after he'd accused Mr Cameron of living in an 'ideological dream world': 'The belief that the EU could be renegotiated and Germany would support this borders on a belief in miracles,' a belief in which, judging by the parliamentary time devoted by Mr Cameron to the subject of gay marriage, he doesn't hold with.

It is a further deceit for the Europhiles (and that includes Mr Harper whose voting record in support of EU integration would be a disgrace to any Tory worth his salt) to claim that if Britain was to leave the EU we would be shut out from the single market, at a cost of three million jobs.

This is balderdash. It would be perfectly possible to stay within the single market simply by invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and so join the two most prosperous countries in Europe, namely Norway and Switzerland, in the European Free Trade Area.

The irony is that this would deliver exactly what Messrs Cameron and Harper claim they want, but can't have because invoking Article 50 would mean this country leaving the EU, an unlikely outcome, I admit, so long as it's 'fear and doubt' and not 'belief and hope' which our governing class uses as its principal tools of propaganda.

'Who really cares what we believe in?' Roger Horsfield asked in a letter in which offered us the choice, as he saw it, of coming to terms with the fact that we live in Britain which is either a 'feudal society' or a 'dictatorship'.

Britain is neither of these. This country is now best described as a plutocracy, a system where the majority is dominated and ruled by a small minority of the wealthiest or best connected citizens.

So the question anyone interested in the fate of this country needs to ask a prospective parliamentary candidate (this year or next) is what kind of understanding does he or she have of 'the common good'; of what St Thomas Aquinas, a medieval Roman Catholic scholar who reconciled the political philosophy of Aristotle with the Christian faith, who contended a just ruler or government must work for the common good of all.

– John Muir, Newnham.