THE suggestion by Richard Stott (Letters, July 11) that those of us who are in favour of the UK’s remaining a member of the European Union should pack their bags and go and live there, implies that to be pro the European Union is to reject British values.

This is not so.

What support for the EU implies is that British and European values are the same and inevitably so, since they are the result of centuries of the mutual exchange of ideas on the nature and practical application of just and caring government.

Each of the countries of Europe has contributed to the evolution of the system of social democratic government that we all practise.

Especially to the ongoing development of public welfare, that is government intervention to ensure a fairer distribution of the benefits of wealth, using tax revenues to provide: old age pensions, health services, fair employment laws, public transport etc.

The British contribution has been great, but not uniquely so. We have learned as much as we have taught.

To leave the European Union is to deny the historical reality of the development of democracy and to deny the important role of this country in the centuries of debate that led to it.

The bewilderment of international statesmen at the referendum decision illustrates the point.

Maurice Vassie, Deighton, York