LIKE all EU enthusiasts Christopher Denne makes vague generalisations in support of membership but never with any facts or figures to back them up (Letters January 20). He says that by our membership we ?protect our prosperity and our independence?, but with no supporting evidence. Here are some facts with evidence showing the opposite of what he says. For every £1 Britain receives from the EU we pay £3 to the EU. Is this protecting our prosperity? EU directives have closed down many of our smaller abattoirs and forced the ones that remain to pay for additional, ill-qualified EU inspectors. This is not independence and not good for the prosperity of abattoir owners. With an astonishing 90% of new legislation in Britain coming from the EU, literally thousands of examples of loss of independence can be listed. Ask our fishermen how prosperous and independent of Europe they are. I am not a member of UKIP, but it is interesting how no politician or public figure can actually quantify any benefits of our membership. Which is why we never hear them on the subject in the media. David Wright Holewell Farm Walkhampton YOUR correspondent Christopher Denne says that were we to leave the European Union ?we should be poorer and weaker?. Where is the evidence? Does he not realise that currently we pay the EU in the region of £1-million a day? We could build a lot of hospitals and schools for that! Only 14.4% of our trade is with Europe, who still trades with non EU countries. We have very little influence within the European Parliament. But this undemocratic, inefficient, fraud-ridden monster prevents us from being self-governing. Having written numerous letters to Westminster, especially about moral issues, replies have often stated that our Government has had to fall into line with Europe. Its secular humanistic laws now increasingly overrule our own laws, which were based on Judeo-Christian values. ?Our independence?? We have already lost most of it! In the unlikely event that we actually would be poorer outside the EU I would sooner be poorer and free! Terence Scarborough 1 Uplands Tavistock YOUR correspondent (Christopher Denne describes Britain?s continued EU membership as necessary to maintain both ?our prosperity and independence?. In fact, the EU secures neither. Our prosperity depends ultimately on our ability to produce goods and services which our trading partners, both within and outside the EU, wish to buy. That we are members of the EU does not guarantee that other EU members will buy our products. Nor would our withdrawal from the EU preclude them from doing so. The usual charge from Tony Blair and others is that, were we to leave the EU, we would lose three million jobs. This makes good headlines but is quite fanciful. The reality is that we have a huge deficit on our trade with the EU (some £25-billion last year alone); our EU partners make far too much money out of us for them to sever their trading links with us were we to depart. Norway and Switzerland provide examples of perfectly satisfactory trading arrangements between the EU and non-members which we would be free to follow. And were the EU to impose economic sanctions on this country in the event of its withdrawal, the World Trade Organisation would prevent it from doing so. So EU membership is most definitely not essential to our prosperity. Conversely, our independence can only be secured, not by continued EU membership as your correspondent would have us believe, but by immediate withdrawal. Matthew Jackson UKIP prospective parliamentary candidate for West Devon and Torridge
