RAYMOND Knight (EU funding, Letters, October 15) quotes the familiar Out Camp figures. Open Europe, by contrast, claim that "Brexit" would cost £56 billion per annum in lost jobs, foreign disinvestment etc. Who should we believe?
One inescapable consequence of Brexit, in my view, would be the break-up of the UK – Scotland staying in the EU and Northern Ireland being torn both ways, along Protestant/Catholic lines.
Surely the UK and the EU are each better together, working closely with the US and the Commonwealth in a wider world which is giving rising cause for concern.
Meanwhile, the sad truth back home is that the referendum is misconceived. My own party, the Conservatives, are turning inwards and away from the man in the street, who is mostly exercised by other issues.
By all means let us work with others to update and streamline the EU (with, for example, a bigger say for national parliaments and less bureaucracy), but also do the same back home (beginning with the overdue reform of Westm-inster, with a smaller House of Commons, a much smaller House of Lords, and far fewer unelected "special political advisers" and spin doctors).
Meanwhile, we Ludlovians should heed Ken Clarke’s warning that leaving the EU would risk our country’s prosperity, threaten our safety and diminish our influence in the world.
SIR LESLIE FIELDING KCMG
Elton, Nr Ludlow