SIR – The letter’s page publishes many letters from Eurosceptics. Could I suggest that these ‘little Englanders’ look at other EU countries and see the difference the EU has made to them.

Most of them have a far higher standard of living then we have.

Take Ireland for example.

Any visit to that country will demonstrate the benefits of being an EU member in raising living standards. They now enjoy a higher standard of living than we do. This is because they have embraced the EU and derived as many benefits from it as they can instead of moaning about it.

We seem to have embraced all the bureaucracy and few of the benefits.

I think this is due to the wiles of our civil service who seem to hold sway over our rather unworldly politicians.

It seems that we have opened up our energy market to foreign competition under EU rules. Now the majority of our energy market is owned by foreigners.

It seems they have been overcharging us to subsidise their profits in their own countries whose governments have not opened up their markets.

The governments of France and Germany have capped their price rises so they rip us off to get their profits.

Don’t blame the EU, blame the politicians who are not as clever as the French, German, Irish etc at extracting the maximum benefits from EU policies while managing to avoid any rules that will affect their own economies.

TERRY JAMES, Drakes Broughton.