By failing to vote in favour of an EU Referendum in last week's Parliamentary debate Mark Harper demonstrated once again his readiness to put party and personal ambition before queen and country.

Meanwhile, while the euro's life-support machine misfired for the umpteenth time Germany's Chancellor claimed, without a trace of irony, that 'what is good for Europe is good for Germany'. And then she warned of war in Europe if the euro fails.

There's little doubt there will be civil war in Europe's nation states if they are not freed from the straight jacket of the European Single Currency.

While the storm gathers those of us in Britain, who haven't been made fearful of a future as an independent nation by self-serving politicians and a complicit media, are impatient for the kind of leadership we once associated with a Churchill or a Wellington. In Cameron and Clegg we have to make do with a Chamberlain and a Halifax.

Seventy two years ago the British finally woke up to reality and fought for democracy against an external enemy. What's left of our supine democracy today faces a danger greater still, because it's an enemy within, a wolf in sheep's clothing, a seductive European Union.

And whilst our freedoms are at stake, Harper and his fellow travellers in the Lib/Lab/Con trick merely mouth platitudes. Trapped like rabbits in the headlights of the EU juggernaut, they 'whisper together', like TS Eliot's 'hollow men', the mantra 'in Europe but not run by Europe'.

If we haven't learnt from history we are doomed to repeat it. Unless Britain wakes up to the role it's played for centuries – the role of defender of an individual's freedom and a nation's right to self-determination (which means today we show we have the courage to break free from Europe's latest version of a corrupt and undemocratic union) – we shall find ourselves spread-eagled beneath the heel of a new Orwellian dictatorship. Human nature doesn't change. 'Power tends to corrupt,' said Lord Acton, 'and absolute power corrupts absolutely.'

And 'Freedom,' said George Orwell, 'is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.' Remember, for the sake of your children, if you don't use it, you will lose it.

– John Muir, Newnham.