Sir, – Your correspondents Dr Gibbins and Andrew Bennett are not alone in being proud to be British. Most British people are intensely patriotic. This country has a long and proud history of extending friendship to other countries, as evidenced by our Commonwealth of Nations which stretches right across the globe, generous overseas aid, United Nations etc. It is one thing to be friendly with our overseas neighbours but to be ruled by an undemocratic, bureaucratic, inward-looking, inflexible and restrictive European Union is something else altogether.

Ruth Robinson,

Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe.