AP COX thinks that 16-year-olds are too immature to be trusted with the vote (Letters, November 21), but Cllr Mark Warters gamely demonstrates that his greater age is no guarantee that he knows what he’s talking about in his letter urging tighter border controls (Letters, November 21).

He wants the UK to withdraw from the “Schengen Agreement of open borders”. The UK isn’t party to this agreement, so it can hardly withdraw from it.

The UK is, however, signed up to the Schengen Information Sharing System, involving the sharing of police intelligence. Does he really want us to renounce that, at this moment?

Islamic State/Isis would be delighted with Cllr Warters’ demand that Syrian refugees should be turned away. Large numbers of Muslims fleeing bloodshed and persecution in Syria is bad propaganda for IS, which wants to paint the ghastly “state” it has carved out of parts of Syria and Iraq as a haven for Muslims; as long as they’re the right kind of Muslim, of course.

IS leaders are dismayed that so many Syrian Muslims believe that they would be safer and less oppressed in Europe than in Isis-land.

Chris Walker-Lyne, Millfield Road, York