On the day of Johnson’s interview in Luxembourg, I was staying with my daughter in Gasperich, a suburb.

My daughter spent 30 years with the EU, and remains in close touch.

A friend of hers was one of just 42 hecklers in the small square where the meeting was held. Due to lack of space indoors, the Prime Ministers met outside.

Boris took one look and fled, leaving his interviewer on his own, bemused and astonished.

Later that evening on local TV, the question was put: had Boris been exceptionally rude to his host, or had he been justified in abandoning his place before the microphones?

The general feedback was that he had been incredibly rude, and Luxembourg appeared to be laughing at his lack of courage when faced with a small group of foreigners. Is our own Parliament not a sufficiently noisy training ground? It will hardly have made a very good impression on the people he is so anxious to propitiate.

As to the First World War being the direct reason for forming the EU, that is simply rubbish.

Had it been so, then Hitler would never have been able to invade most of Europe when he did.

Surely the real horrors came in the Second World War, with Auschwitz, Dachau, Sachsenhausen and Ravensbruch etc. and the deliberate extermination of millions, long after the First World War.

There is no connection between the two wars regarding the European Union.

Only after the second war did Europe become unified and peaceful.

How long this lasts with Boris at the helm no-one can guess.

Incidentally, the EU grew from small beginnings with a trade pact between Luxembourg and Belgium , regarding steel.

I rest my case.

Helena Smith

Dagmar Road

Dorchester,