RITA Crombleholme (Letters, January 25) refers to the net UK contribution of £2.8 billion to the EU.

This is about 0.4 per cent of a total public spending of £742 billion. Actually it is more like 1.2 per cent.

For this modest contribution, according to official figures, every British household benefits from EU membership by about £3,000 a year.

Three million British jobs are linked to trade with the 27 other EU countries making up half of all our exports and £27 billion investment comes from the EU to the UK.

The rights of British workers whether in the UK or elsewhere in the EU, are protected by the EU.

There are about as many Brits working in other EU countries as there are people from those countries working in the UK.

If the UK left the EU, Scotland may leave the UK and Great Britain would become an impoverished, insecure Little Britain.

I don’t want to con you Rita, but I encourage you to know more about the EU and the UK’s vital engagement with it.

Peter Jarman, Mallory Close, New Earswick, York