IT IS with a depressing sense of Deja Vu that I once again have to challenge in the Welsh press the pro-European Union bluster of one of its highly paid employees, one Derek Vaughan, Labour MEP, a recent contributor to your letters page in regards to his claims of EU funding of Welsh universities.

Mr Vaughan of course relies on the UK’s membership of the EU for his yearly €80,000 plus wages in addition to his exceedingly generous tax free €300 daily attendance allowance plus €250,000 per annum staff and office allowance allied to his frequent first class travel EU funded trips to various exotic destinations around the world in the pursuit of knowledge that purportedly will help the future of Wales.

So I would argue Mr Vaughan is hardly an independent neutral contributor to the Leave/Remain referendum debate, more a contributor with a lucrative personal financial interest in the UK remaining in.

I would on this occasion like to yet again point out to Mr Vaughan that receiving your own money back after approximately 50 per cent has been appropriated to be spent in other European countries as well as the lavish wage and expense bill of the vast army of European Union bureaucrats is perhaps not the best fiscal deal for the British and Welsh taxpayer.

Only an economic illiterate would fail to realise that handing over twice as much as you receive back from an institution that has failed to have its accounts signed off by its own auditors for more years than I care to remember is a good deal for those contributing these funds out of their hard earned wages.

Perhaps this continued economic illiteracy explains the record of successive Labour governments repeated almost successful attempts to bankrupt the UK every time they gain the reigns of power.

Let me spell it out yet again in simple terms for Mr Vaughan. If we stopped handing over £12bn annually to the EU which we don’t get back, then quite obviously there would be more to spend on Welsh universities and other projects within Wales than we currently receive back from the EU.

Unless of course Mr Vaughan is suggesting that a future Labour Government would deny Wales of its future rightful share of UK Government funding.

Kevin Mahoney,

Councillor Sully and Lavernock ward,

Vale of Glamorgan Council