MEMORIES of Hitler were evoked at the weekend when Sir James Goldsmith's Referendum "Party held its first - and possibly last - annual conference.
Referring to the stated ambitions of the German Chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, for European integration, the former Commons speaker, Lord Tonypandy, warned darkly: "History has told us that when German chancellors outline in advance what their intentions are it is a criminal irresposibility not to take their threats seriously.
Lord Tonypandy, previously Mr George Thomas, a Labour MP, was speaking by video link to an audience of upwards of 4,000 gathered in Brighton to endorse the demand for a referendum on Britain's future relationship with Europe.
Sir James - the billionaire financier bank rolling the party to the tune of £20 million - was no more specific about the precise options he would place before the British electorate. As before, he signalled these would include: becoming part of a federal Europe; part of a Europe, of independent nation states; leaving the European Union for the European Free Trade Area; or abandoning all institutional links with Europe.
But a warm up video demonising Dr Kohl and Sir Edward Heath, and the audience reaction to platform performances, left little doubt that this was a stridently Eurosceptical rally a new home for Little Englanders disillusioned with the Conservative government's wait and see approach on the European single currency.
Sir James told his audience that the British people were being encouraged "to sleepwalk into surrendering our nation", adding. Now the trap is being closed. We are being led blindfold into a federal super state.
Pledging that his was a "rabble army which would save Britain from Europe, Sir James declared the country's sovereignty could not be brought to an end "through the back room dealings of politicians".
Sir James, who will oppose the former minister Mr David Mellor - in Putney at the next election, insisted: "The sovereignty of this nation belongs to its people and not to a group of career politician".
The right's of Britons to pass laws in their own land, to run their economy, determine foreign policy, organise national security and control their borders had already been abandoned or were under immediate threat, Sir James said. A vote for the Referendum Party, he declared, "is your chance to decide whether Britain will bring home her right to self government". A vote for the other parties is a vote for Brussels".
Sir Alan Walters, former economics adviser to Mrs Margaret Thatcher, said the pound sterling would become a "collector's curio" and the Bank of England an "errand boy" if Britain were ever to sign up to monetary union. And he warned: Monetary union is seen as the linchpin of this greater union centred around Germany. The concentration of monetary powers spawns the concentration of budgetary and political power, and ultimately of security and foreign policy.
Evoking the memory of Napoleon's Grande Armee, and the threat of German invasion in the second World War the wildlife park owner Mr John Aspinall declared: "In this century a million Englishmen have given up their lives so that we should remain free - free from a German dominated Europe. It took 800 years to meld the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes and Normans into a true nation. If it took so long to forge the modern English nation from five closely related peoples, how many thousands of years would it take to evolve a cohesive continental superstate?"