B HOWARTH'S latest letter (November 15) illustrates the desperation to which the anti-European fringe have now been driven, and the scaremongering, which is their first and only response.

Further European integration, if it occurs, is extremely unlikely to lead to either Brits being forced to drive on the right, or to the reintroduction of conscription.

The reasons in either instance are purely practical. You only have to estimate the likely cost of remodelling and resignalling the tens of thousands of signalled junctions on Britain's highways, then multiply by a factor of about 10 to take account of the costs of altering the road lining at every non-signal junction and along every highway in the country, and attempt to offset against this any possible benefit, to realise that it is a non-runner.

As to the return of National Service, that won't happen either. Europe does not currently raise any kind of army, but even if it did it cannot buck the iron laws of military science. Modern military equipment is, as it has to be, state of the art, leading edge technology. Assume that enlistment is quarterly, and the duration of National Service is two years, as it was before. That means that, every three months, 12 per cent of your total conscript force is discharged, and a new cohort has to be recruited and trained. training alone is unlikely to take less than three months. The cost alone would be prohibitive. But, apart from anything else, to do it at all would mean that the best of our professional soldiers would be permanently occupied in training the next cohort of rookie conscripts. That is no way to organise a modern army. So it won't happen.

Peter Johnston

Kendal Road

Bolton