We are so much better off being part of the EU

D Cameron’s attempt to justify Brexit on the backs of fallen heroes in two world wars is at best just plain wrong, and at worst mendacious and malicious (Letters, November 8). To do it at the time of remembrance is an obscenity, and cannot pass unchallenged.

I was born in Birmingham in 1942 during an air-raid, which, fortunately, we all survived. But my grandfather was killed on the Somme in 1918 and he never saw his daughter – my mum – though he did send her a first birthday card – in silk – and delivered after his death. My dad was injured in Normandy in 1944, Mentioned in Despatches and invalided home.

I spent a large part of my professional life seeking to extend mutual knowledge and understanding via a series of initiatives involving teachers and students in France, Germany, Austria and Hungary. They were very successful and would have been completely impossible without a range of over-arching EU initiatives, not least the TEMPUS programmes.

For a long time I had become increasingly worried by trends in English politics, especially Margaret Thatcher’s turning selfishness into a virtue (remember ‘There is no such thing as society’?), and I resolved to leave as soon as I could.

My chance came in 2002, when I was able to move to Scotland, which I found much more congenial, culturally and politically, having a level of personal and public consideration and humanity I found generally more lacking south of the border.

In 2014, I voted for independence and, when this failed, I joined the SNP. In 2016, in common with 62 per cent of my fellow persons of Scotland, I voted to remain in the European Union. We have had 40 years of peace and great benefits. Britain’s place in the EU was and is a huge bargain, not least retaining our own currency while simultaneously enjoying all the benefits of full membership – the envy other members.

To give up on all this is total madness. It is the last convulsion of Empire. So let’s consign D Cameron and his sidekick Colonel Blimp to the dustbin of history where they belong, and ignore the lies of the Tory posh boys and Moggites. Let’s achieve independence, stay in the EU, remember the Declaration of Arbroath and make Scotland great again.

John Gosling, Siskin, Barcaldine.