UKIP are right to say that the EU is not just a common market. It doesn’t help that big businesses are queuing up to tell us to stay in the EU simply because it benefits jobs and trade.

The EU is about far more than that. Its origins are in the embers of the Second World War and the determination that Europe must move on from centuries of war and reinvent itself. It is now unimaginable that France and Germany could go to war.

It is about a recognition that our cultures and our shared geography present us all with opportunities to pool our resources to serve our common interests.

Pollution does not respect borders, the fish of the North Sea do not stay within one nation’s coastal waters, criminals do not feel obliged to operate within one country, natural disasters can strike any one of us and leave us in need of outside assistance, access to energy can compromise our security.

For those reasons and many others we choose to be together because together we are stronger. Yes, our membership is about jobs but the EU is about more than that.

Christian Vassie, Blake Court, Wheldrake, York.