I AM relaxed about people holding a variety of opinions at variance with my own, but I despair that so many have lost interest in facts.

W Harrison sets out some thoughts on the EU referendum (Letters, July 21).

Fair enough, but the last sentence is completely unacceptable. Harrison asserts that 52 per cent of the population voted to leave. This is simply untrue.

Latests figures from the Office for National Statistics puts population of the UK at 65.1 million in 2015.

Total number of Leave votes in the EU referendum: 17,410,742.

That means that 26.745 per cent of the UK population voted to leave the EU, a fraction over a quarter of the population and roughly half the figure advanced by Harrison. And 17.4 million represents only 37.4 per cent of the electorate.

I understand very well that in Brexitland facts are of limited interest and that there is a desire among a percentage of the population to return to a pre-scientific age, but just as Turkey was never “about to join the EU” so 52 per cent of the UK population did not vote to leave the EU.

Facts matter.

Christian Vassie, Wheldrake, York