I REFER to the letter by David Phipps, chairman of Witney UKIP (Oxford Mail Viewpoints, March 9).

He referred to the right-wing Bruges Group’s figures of an accumulated trade deficit with the EU of £387bn.

While I don’t have time to verify these figures they are in any case totally irrelevant. Does UKIP really believe that UK exports to the EU would increase or that imports from the EU would fall if we were no longer a member?

To begin with, we don’t import from the EU as an act of charity. Imports would simply become more expensive and exporting more difficult.

Does UKIP understand that British jobs depend on both imports and exports?

Britain’s trade deficit isn’t limited to the EU but the whole world. What does UKIP suggest to correct that? Britain’s withdrawal from the world?

In fact looking at the most recent figures, despite the largest ever trade deficit, goods exported to EU countries increased by 5.9 per cent, but there was a 15.9 per cent plunge in exports to non-EU countries. Exports to the US alone were down 8.5 per cent. Our trade deficit to the EU was £3.2bn and non-EU £4.8bn.

Once again quoting the xenophobic Bruges Group, Mr Phipps claims that membership of the EU cost the UK £56bn in 2008, while, according to the Treasury, Britain’s net contributions to the European Union in 2009-10 will be £4.8bn – less than 10 per cent of Mr Phipps’ fantasy figures.

As for Mr Phipps’ claim that “over-regulation costs the UK £28bn per year”, would he like to be more precise and explain what regulation we could abandon if the UK went crazy and left the EU, and what would be necessary in any case?

For example, would he like to abandon the maximum working week, the minimum wage or efforts to reduce carbon emissions?

It really is Alice in Wonderland stuff.

R LEE, Burford Road, Witney