TORY MEP Richard Ashworth thinks that our national security requires EU-membership (letters, May 16). That is certainly not the opinion of a former head of MI6.

Sir Richard Dearlove has stated that because of Britain’s pre-eminence in matters of intelligence and security, it gives much more than it gets in return, and so the likelihood of other EU states ending this beneficial relationship with the UK is zero (The Times, March 24).

Our most important intelligence links are with the USA and other members of the ‘5 Eyes’: Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Meanwhile, Dearlove points out that many of the 28 European Union member-states are so lacking in professionalism, where sensitive information is concerned, that these “colanders” cannot be entrusted with the best intelligence material of the larger powers.

Those who hold in awe the European Arrest Warrant would do well to remember the number of innocent Britons who have been extradited to squalid, rat-infested and dangerous jails on the continent, at the whim of a foreign judiciary, then incarcerated for months or even years, before being released; charges dropped.

No apology. No compensation. Only injustice.

Colin Hingston Southampton