Sir – It is good that Professor Vernon Bogdanor is taking on the localism agenda (Feature, July 16) but a pity that he appears to supinely accept Britain’s membership of the European Union (EU). He should surely know that we will not be able to solve the problems we face if we cannot hold those we elect to account.

The present method of local government is a sham as it is dictated by central government and imposed either directly or by means of regional development agencies and quangos.

In Oxfordshire, as elsewhere, the cabinet system of local government means, firstly, that the majority of local councillors are disenfranchised as they have no input into policies that are followed and, secondly, results in local authorities being no more than administration centres for central government.

Professor Bogdanor also neglects to address the basic question of who governs this country. A Conservative MEP, Nirj Deva, recently noted that “last year alone, over 5,000 statutory instruments were pushed through the House of Commons by Ministers, many of them involved with the direct transposition of European directives and regulations and almost all of them rushed through without proper debate or parliamentary scrutiny”.

Professor Bogdanor is “delighted that David Cameron is now so focused on constitutional matters”. If David Cameron were so focussed, surely he would not wish Britain to remain a member of the EU, whose ruling clique we do not elect and who are therefore unaccountable to us, and who originate 75 per cent of the laws by which we are governed.

Dr Peter Gardner (UKIP Oxford)

David Phipps (UKIP Witney)