Churchill was pro Europe

ALAN Donnelly (Letters, April 15) seems to attribute the creation of the NHS to Sir Winston Churchill being Prime Minister from 1940 and the general election of 1945.

As leader at the time, Mr Churchill played his part with the people of this country, our allies and the peoples of the empire/ commonwealth so that we did not become a province of the Third Reich. We can also be grateful that we did, under the Labour government, end up with the NHS. The current pandemic goes to prove how valuable, beyond words, we do have a cherished NHS.

In one of his most important post war speeches, Zurich 1946, Sir Winston called for the setting up of a United States of Europe.

He said we must build and fortify a United Nations organisation and within that world concept, to create a European family in a regional structure with the first practical step to form a Council of Europe. He described it as joining a union and said let Europe arise.

His son-in-law, Christopher Soames, a Conservative MP and pan European, became a European Commissioner. His grandson, Sir Nicholas Soames, Conservative MP until 2019, was also a pro European and has stated in an interview, that can be viewed online, he was sure

his grandfather would not have been a Brexiteer and perplexed that the UK had left the European Union.

Ben Giles, Gateshead