I REALLY enjoyed Alison Phillips’ plea for some gentle humour about the referendum. If only!

I’ve always been in favour of remaining in the EU, but when the campaign started I expected to hear the other side bring forward sensible and logical reasons for leaving. Your feature Getting their message Out, like all other media coverage, shows that they don’t seem to have any sensible or logical reasons and certainly not any humour, gentle or otherwise.

The reason for leaving given by Andrew Murrison MP and a 17-year-old campaigner are that it’s because of democracy. Yes, the elected European Parliament shares legislative and budgetary powers with the unelected Council of the European Union so it’s not a perfect representative democracy. Many other people in Europe would also like this to change, but see it as a call for reform not a reason for leaving.

Andrew Murrison also says he is fed up with all the cost and bureaucracy of the EU. Regarding cost, we actually pay about 1% of GDP to be in the EU, and if we left we would still have to pay 90% of what we currently contribute to keep on trading without having any power or influence to change things in our favour.

Regarding bureaucracy, that means the people who implement decisions and make it work. Maybe the EU has too many of them, I don’t know, but no administration since time began has functioned without such people, and there has also been no time when they haven’t been blamed and resented a lot more than praised.

A big part of the bureaucrats’ job is implementing regulations that keep us safe, things like clean water, safe food, baby equipment and toys, clean beaches and protection of the environment. If we left our own UK bureaucrats would be doing it instead and they wouldn’t be perfect either.

We’ve had 70 years of peace, the best public services in the world, a standard of living everyone else envies, and total freedom to live, work and study in the other countries of Europe where people share our basic values and culture but are at the same time proudly independent and different.

What’s not to like?

Vivienne Kynaston, Elms Cross Drive, Bradford on Avon