THE Oxford Mail has regularly been publishing Eurosceptic, nay Europhobic, letters with headings like: ‘UK suffering because of EU policies’, ‘Those in the know put us in EU economic mess’, ‘Europe dictates and our government jumps’. The writers of these letters purport to be ‘concerned citizens’, rather than flag wavers for political organisations like UKIP. All of these letters are similar in slagging off the EU for nicking ‘our’ money, imposing ‘intolerable’, ‘foreign’ laws and allowing ‘those’ Europeans to celebrate Christmas every day of the year at “our expense”. It amounts to a wonderful wheeze, as the writers do not have to spell out one detail of how a Britain outside the EU would operate. It also amounts to a massive deflection operation on behalf of all those British companies which have chosen to close their factories in Britain and relocate them to China, India and other low-wage producer countries.

For it is this move – which is largely responsible for slashing the number of industrial jobs in Britain from eight million to around 2.5 million over the last 35 years – that lies behind the ‘mess’ that the Europhobes moan about. So how would a Britain outside the EU look? Perhaps these gentlemen would like to tell us? A series of cogently argued 250-word letters should do the trick (though do not expect them to go unchallenged).

But, please, no more moans in letters that insult our intelligence. JONATHAN SAUNDERS Ramsay Road Oxford