I refer to Kevin Hodkin’s letter ‘England post-Wembley 1966’ (July 23).

He accuses me of many mistakes, including suggesting that immigration to UK was linked to the millennium.

Of course I am fully aware that many migrants arrived in UK before this. In fact, I was tryingto acknowledge his concern by pointing out that Derby had had a rapid increase in immigration in the decade or so after the millennium.

Hodkin seems to think I am sufficiently naive to believe all buildings used as mosques must have minarets.

These buildings do have to be registered and the figures I quoted make nonsense of his assertion that there are mosques on nearly every street corner. But he fails to address the core of my “diatribe”, which was that, though there were many problems in the UK, they could not all be ascribed to EU membership.

Rather, his letter is just a rant about immigration of whichhe does not approve despite the fact that he is clearly an immigrant himself.

A good example is his remark about walking in certain towns around lunchtime on Fridays. I am not aware that those from Eastern Europe seeking work under the EU freedom of movement rules are in the habit of congregating on street corners on Fridays at noon.

I suspect he is referring to Muslims attending prayers on their holy day. The majority of these are from the Indian sub-continent. EU membership has nothing to do with it.

Hodkin believes leaving the EU is the best thing to happen to England since the World Cup of 1966. If one ignores the Anglo-centricity of his remarks, we can, perhaps, both agree to hope that our home country will have more success in the international arena over the next 50 years than the English football team had over the past half century.