MR O’NEILL concludes (Penarth Times, December 15) that the EU is far from perfect.

I couldn’t agree more. But then, which political institution is perfect? If we are looking for perfection we are whistling in the wind, are we not?

If however, we are seeking a system that was conceived as a way of stabilising Europe after two terrible wars and a way of keeping peace between the nations that fought those wars, then look no further than the EU.

And then look around at what is happening in the world today: horrific war in the Middle East; Russia up to its elbows in the blood of children and chortling at the disarray in Europe; America seemingly ready to jettison Nato. Great and very dangerous changes in the offing.

Will it be better to be in or out of a group of nations that together can wield some influence on world events and offer mutual support to its members? Or better on our own, adrift and at the mercy of wherever the political world-winds take us?

And looming on the horizon, the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change that will affect every nation on Earth and which, if nations fail to cooperate to mitigate those effects, will quite possibly destroy human-kind.

Better in, I think, than out – however, imperfect. The alternative scarcely bears thinking about.

Alan Armstrong

Victoria Square

Penarth