Many benefits for UK in EU

Dear Sir,

My greatest concern with Chris Watkin's letter in last week's Guardian is that he is confusing the money we are sending to Brussels as a member with the greater benefits from increased trade that we receive by being part of the EU.

More and more organisations such as The Bank of England are stating that in their view we would suffer financially in lost trade if we came out of the EU.

As one of the richer countries, it is only fair that we provide funds for less well-off countries to modernise their economies, at least partly so that they can and want to buy our goods and services.

Of course, it is a value judgement as to whether we would become a net richer or poorer country if we left depending on when the calculation is made as we would immediately stop paying Brussels the sums he mentions whereas our changing trade relationships would take time to take effect.

I have to ask what sort of country he sees us becoming if we left; asylum seekers would still come, we would still need to negotiate with the EU on cross border criminals and we would still have to deal with people, drugs and goods trafficking.

Our future lies as a proud independent country within an improved EU playing our full part in global affairs and bringing our values of fairness, tolerance and openness to a world that increasingly needs them.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Peter Hirst

Middlewich