Ceri Jayes, of Lower Warren Road, Kingsbridge, writes:

I wonder how many readers heard the Today programme on Radio 4 on Thursday, February 18, in which presenter Sarah Montague gave former Labour leader and ex-European ­commissioner Neil Kinnock a 10-minute slot to talk about the dangers of the UK leaving the EU.

His jaundiced view about trade figures and scare stories went totally unchallenged.

He said, for example, that the UK sells 51 per cent of its exported goods to the rest of the EU, while the EU countries sell less than nine per cent of their goods to us. Wrong! The EU accounted for 47 per cent of our exports last year and 16 per cent of EU exports came here. In monetary terms, the UK exported £230bn of goods to EU countries and imported £289bn.

Also, Mr Kinnock neglected to mention the important fact that UK exports that pass through Rotterdam, even though they may be being shipped to countries outside the EU, would be ‘counted’ as an export to the EU, an ­anomaly that inflates those ­figures artificially.

Two weeks ago I ‘put on my deerstalker’ and researched the ‘information’ put out by the Confederation of British Industry in the Europe and You newspaper and exposed my findings in the Gazette, February 5. I quickly unearthed more misinformation when I investigated the BBC Radio 4 programme – and indeed the BBC in general.

The BBC has a guaranteed income regardless of its ­performance. We the licence payers cough up £145.50 for a TV licence and should surely expect even-handed coverage of issues such as the EU ­referendum.

Not so. It has issued guidelines to its reporters that they will not be obliged to give equal airtime to both sides of the argument, but rather to ensure a ‘broad balance’.

How many people realise that if a BBC contributor has been employed by one of the EU institutions, they must demonstrate loyalty to the EU or face being stripped of their right to a pension or other ­benefits? So ask yourself, how impartial was Lord Kinnock’s view likely to be?

The BBC received £22.1m from the European Commission between 2007 and 2013 and ­further millions since. Throw into the pot that hefty financial incentive plus the directive to the presenter that she must give ‘broad balance’, and what do you get?

I began to wonder about the other ‘experts’ that the BBC calls on as interviewees. Are institutions other than the CBI beholden to the largesse of the EU?

Did you know that the 24 research-intensive UK universities that form the Russell Group receive funding from Brussels? They receive £400m a year, which represents 11 per cent of their income. Could this ­influence the professors’ and other academics’ views?

I fear that vested interests are taking precedence over accurate and well-balanced arguments on the referendum issue. My rule of thumb when tuning in to a debate is to ask myself whether an interviewee has their personal future, or

the future of their country, uppermost in their mind.

The EU has hijacked the word ‘European’, yet there are 50 countries and six self-­governing states in Europe, and only 28 of them are in the EU.

The referendum on June 23 is a vote to leave the EU or to stay within it. Whatever the ­outcome, we will not be leaving the continent of Europe.