This is what I was afraid would happen when my letter was headed ‘Immigration’ when the correspondence had nothing to do with that but was about the EU’s influence on UK law-making.

I’ve tried to consolidate the two subjects. Mr House’s claim that they never stated that 29 million Romanians and Bulgarians would be entitled to come here is directly contradicted by a letter from Nigel Farage which I have in my files.

That’s precisely what he said, and I have it in front of me in black and white!

On the other matter, if one cannot rely on information supplied by the House of Commons Library, what can one rely on?

It is unacceptable for Mr House to accuse me of misleading the public when I’m quoting from such an impeccable source, and for that reason I want to press him for his alternative source of information because I think the public are entitled to know just where he gets his wild accusations from.

Letter for publication begins: Sir, Mr House claims that UKIP never categorically stated that 29 million Romanians and Bulgarians were planning to invade Britain, and accuses me of misleading the public by saying that they did.

I have in front of me a letter from Nigel Farage, delivered early last year.

There are three bullet points. The first one says ‘On January 1st 2014, the UK will open its door to unlimited numbers of people from Romania and Bulgaria’.

The second says ‘29 million people will be entitled to come here’.

A reasonable person would conclude that those two consecutive statements taken together are about as near to categorical as you can get.

As the total population of the two countries is 26 million (three million less!), I stand by my accusation that UKIP ‘facts’ are totally unreliable and are often made up.

Reverting to the original dispute between us, Mr House claimed that 80 per cent of our laws are dictated by the EU, to which I responded that according to the House of Commons Library the EU influences between 9-14 per cent (Note: ‘influences’, not ‘dictates’).

Once again he accused me of misleading the public – a charge he’s very fond of making when he’s losing an argument – and has not answered my challenge: if you dispute the figures given by the House of Commons Library, where do you get your figures from?

Martin Kyrle.