I WOULD like to respond to the claim made in Terry Hayward’s letter of June 20 that our membership of the EU has created 42 years of high unemployment in the UK.

He is correct that since the early '70s we have seen periods of high unemployment, and even during its lowest point we have not enjoyed the levels of employment experienced in the 1950s and 1960s.

But this has been caused by a variety of reasons not linked to our membership of the EU.

In the '50s and '60s Britain, along with large parts of Europe, needed to be rebuilt after the war, which led to economic growth across the world helping to maintain high employment.

This started to decline in the 1970s as the world suffered an economic downturn caused firstly by pricing of the dollar in relation to gold and then the resulting oil price crises.

On top of this, we saw a change in political economic direction from Keynesian principles to Monetarism, moving away from the belief that spending was the best way out of recession, to one of a free market approach espoused by free marketer Adam Smith, an ideologue ruthlessly embraced by Margaret Thatcher.

None of this was due to being in the EU, which was even acknowledged by Margaret Thatcher in the mid-'70s when she is recorded as saying in a Shadow Cabinet meeting that Britain`s economic competitiveness and the efficiency of our industrial and education systems had been declining for decades, but it was felt that it would be difficult to blame one political party for this.

She said there had been a gradual shift to the left since the war in most European countries yet these had experienced remarkable economic success.

Monetarism took us further to the right; a route that many European countries followed in the '90s, not the other way round.

However enjoyable looking at the past may be it would not be wise for us to dwell on it too much during the EU referendum debate.

That must concentrate on the future and how a 21st century Britain will look in or out of the EU, as the referendum’s outcome will only affect what’s to come.

The past, whether you agree or disagree with it, can’t be changed.

ROBERT BARNARD Rodbourne Road, Swindon