SIR – Re the letter (T&A, December 19) from Edward three-barrelled Scott and Rebecca Taylor, MEPs no less, about how universities and businesses can now apply for £12.5 billion-worth of European funding I feel like the worker from the 19th century, who, as his master left the building and threw thruppence ha’penny into his hand, wished him Merry Christmas, “see you in the new year” after my foreign holiday, and you work harder to pay for it...

This is not a gift, it is funding that has been paid for by us. What an insult to think we would look at it as a gift. It has not yet been given, said universities have to apply for the funding.

The amount of money we as a country have paid into this unelected, undemocratic, omnipotent money-making machine beggars belief, and it and supporters of it should be treated with the contempt they deserve.

They say in the third paragraph, “look again at the hard facts about the value and money the EU brings” – joy of joys.

Look at the decimated fishing industry the EU thrust upon us, look at the unfinished accounts, look at the cost to us of being a member...

Derrick Hodgson, Falcon Road, Bingley