IS it the Viking Festival that causes some Press correspondents (Letters, February 8) to seek the put the Prime Minister in the role of a King Canute holding back the tide of globalisation?

The problems the UK is facing in the fields of the financial instability of markets, climate change, terrorism, refugee crises, corporate tax avoidance, and epidemics of rare diseases are all global.

They can no more be resolved by the actions of the government of one nation, than Canute could control the tides.

To work to resolve them we need to act in combination with other countries, starting with neighbouring nations with whom we have been interacting, co-operating and sharing culture and principles of social organisation over many, many centuries.

We have an historic international working relationship with the other nations of Europe, which we can be proud of.

In no other continent have the nations yet developed the same ability to organise to work together for the common good. It would be folly and irresponsible to give up our role among the leaders of the European Union.

Maurice Vassie, Deighton, York