SIR – Stuart Baker is selective with his use of statistics (Letters, December 16).

If you believe the £6.2 billion “which the EU cost us this year” are the only costs, then feel free to do so.

But, if your subs for an angling club are £100 per year, does that mean, as a fisherman, that they represent the entire cost of your fishing for a year? With his kind of logic employed, that is what Mr Baker is implying.

Secondly, his claim that the EU generates some £120 billion of trade annually is disingenuous and factually incorrect.

This trade would still exist and without tariff barriers, whether a full member of the EU or as an associate like Switzerland and countless other nations.

The Taxpayers’ Alliance estimates the total annual costs to this nation to be £100 billion-plus, and possibly with good cause.

However, I generally use The Bruges Group statistics which estimate costs at more than £55 billion annually as these are easier to prove.

My £80 billion figure over five years was used so that not even the most dyed-in-the-wool Europhile could possibly take exception. On that,I was clearly wrong and humbly apologise. Mark Twain indeed, Mr Baker!

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford Chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury, Bradford