ALLAN Ralston is mistaken (Warrington Guardian, January 9).

The Bloomberg report says Brexit has cost £130billion. not £200billion.

It may be true or maybe we’re being assailed by statistical propaganda.

With people like Will Hutton toting the report around it suggests the latter. It measures the relative performance of our GDP from 2016 to 2019 compared to the average of the G7 not the EU 27 which is implied by Mr Ralston.

More interesting is how these statistics are used. The data can be tortured to show just about anything and a few Chinese whispers later distortions appear.

There are many reasons GDP changes: strikes, weather, disasters and many other factors, so attributing a change to Brexit alone is statistically illiterate.

It’s one input among many and GDP is not necessarily a good measure.

A reduction in road accidents year on year reduces GDP. That’s a good thing.

The real distortion is the period chosen. The previous four years 2012 to 2015 showed the UK’s GDP had risen relative to the G7, yet I don’t remember this reported in 2016 as being due to a potential Brexit benefit.

This results in people like Will Hutton and his ilk presenting the Bloomberg GDP change as an actual Brexit cost rather than a dodgy guess.

Mr Ralston says American farming practices are abysmal.

That is a total distortion.

He clearly believes Jeremy Corbyn who said a US trade deal would mean Britons eating maggots and rat hairs.

Sir Keith Starmer repeated Corbyn’s slur but had to admit he was wrong when questioned by Kay Burley on Sky News.

In fact The 2019 Global Food Quality and Safety index shows the USA in fourth place and the UK in 18th.

Mr Ralston’s ‘tiny Britain’ is the fifth largest economy. Is he seriously suggesting we can’t trade successfully? For many of us economics were not the reason we voted as we did.

Cllr Jordan says she can see no benefits. What remainers mean is their definition of a benefit is different.

Where I see a benefit in saving our £13 billion annual contribution, she obviously sees this as a disadvantage for some strange reason.

I see regaining complete control of our law-making, free of the ECJ and unelected commissioners instigating new laws as a huge benefit.

The EU is not the sort of ‘democracy’ in which I wish to live.

RICHARD BUTTREY Stockton Heath