SIR – We really must kill the absurd lie that three million jobs depend on the United Kingdom being at the ‘heart of Europe’, whatever that may mean.

There has been a massive trade imbalance in Europe’s favour for nearly 30 years – our percentage of GDP related to EU trade is about 11 per cent, swamped by the cost of complying with EU regulations for the other 89 per cent of the economy.

The argument that political union is necessary to trade is economically illiterate. Such nonsense from Lord Brittain we expect, indeed he is paid to spout it under the terms of his EU pension arrangements (still undeclared in the House of Lords, as an interest), but the other signatories should know better.

Godfrey Bloom, UKIP MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, Wressle, Selby, Yorkshire