I REFER to the report by James Robinson on the debate in the Lights Theatre on April 4 and the related letters by Mr Rowles and Mr Gates of the Lib Dems.

Unfortunately neither you as editor, or Mr Robinson deemed it necessary to confront me as chairman of the debate about these allegations before publication so perhaps you will now grant me the space to reply to the allegation that it was a ‘Brexit’ ambush against the Britain Stronger in Europe team.

Firstly I think your readers will agree that it would be stretching credulity to the extreme to suggest that Brexit supporters would go to the trouble and expense to hire the Lights Theatre, invite representatives from both sides of the divide to a debate and then fill the auditorium with Brexit supporters so they could heckle the Stronger In Europe team.

What would be the sense in that? How would it help them win the referendum?

The facts of the matter are as follows: 1. Following a Ukip meeting last year addressed by senior campaigners from London it was decided that such events, merely confirming existing opinions were a waste of time and that it would far better and at the same time provide a public service if an event could be organised in which both sides could present their point of view.

Such events require volunteer time to organise, so a first approach was made to both parties late last year following which Britain Stronger In Europe readily agreed to participate with Lord Rose leading their team supported by Sir Colin Budd.

BSIE would surely have advised their local members of this.

Patrick O’Flynn MEP and Ms Susan Evans would pose the case for Brexit.

2. The Lights Theatre was booked however difficulties arose in obtaining confirmation from our speakers, all of whom had other pressing commitments as the referendum issue took centre stage in British politics.

3. Nevertheless some informal publicity got underway and approaches were made to five schools, one of whom Andover College wanted to have 40 tickets for a group of students who were scheduled to visit the European Commission later in the same week of the debate.

4. Three weeks before when we were due to start publicity both our Brexit speakers had to withdraw, replacements had to be found and persuaded to come and we finally secured both Daniel Hannan Conservative MEP and Stuart Agnew Ukip MEP. The brochure and posters were finally instructed and I met a deadline with your editor on Tuesday, 29 March for editorial cover which came out in de minimus form in the Good Friday edition.

5. The brochure and posters became available and 3,000 were individually delivered to Andover households by volunteers.

Posters were displayed at the Lights, at both the Andover and Hampshire golf clubs and at petrol stations.

The Lights Theatre itself has a policy of not advertising private bookings on its website.

6. I then contacted Kit Malthouse, our MP, who promised that his agent would inform members of the debate.

I spoke personally to Richard Rowles the Liberal Democrat Chairman, who whilst lamenting the short notice agreed to advise his members and finished our conversation by saying that he was looking forward to meeting me on the night.

We were unable to contact the Labour party leaders and frankly, I forgot to make contact with the Green Party.

7. Subsequently the BSIE office advised that Lord Rose could not attend but that he would be replaced by Lucy Thomas deputy director of the BSIE campaign.

8. BSIE and Leave.EU were repeatedly invited to put up awnings in the town on the weekend of 2 and 3, only Leave.EU was able to provide this.

Being the school holidays we were unable to get confirmation from the schools as to their attendance but ticket sales progressed slowly.

9. Of course as organisers we planned for some family attendance but even so could account for about forty of the final attendance on the night of some two hundred souls.

10. Regrettably the Lib Democrats, although supposedly supporters of the BSIE campaign decided not to enter the theatre on the night of the debate but stayed outside distributing pamphlets.

They then complained that the audience was one sided – well it would tend to be then, wouldn’t it?

11. As to the debate itself I felt that as chairman both sides well presented their respective cases. However the politicians on the Brexit side were more robust in their approach than the more academic presentation on the BSIE side which required my involvement several times to stop heckling.

The Q and A session following was comprehensive.

12. All finished in good humour and we ended with an informal show of hands at which about 20 percent indicated to remain, 50 per cent to leave and the rest undecided.

To a final question four members of the audience said that they had changed their minds as a result of the debate.

I suggested that the result of the referendum itself would depend as Macmillan famously remarked on “Events”, in the next few weeks.

All in all it was an interesting evening.

The result, considering opinion surveys across the country — and the absence of the “Lib Dems” probably represented the views of typical English shire towns at that time.

Our organisation was perforce amateur; on the other hand without Mr Emmerson’s energy and drive it would not have taken place at all.

We suffered at the hands of national organisations on both sides who changed speakers at the last moment but at the end of the day we failed to get enthusiastic support from those who tried to use the occasion to reduce a debate about the future governance of our country to one of narrow party politics – a pity.

Finally one may ask why, as editor, you sir have evidently decided to permit a debate on an issue of such national importance which stands above party politics to be turned into a platform for a party whose policies in general were so comprehensively rejected by the British public at the last general election, and whose principal legacy has been an energy policy which is a prime contributor to the present crisis in the steel industry and related energy dependant industries in our country.

Robert Hickman CBE, Micheldever Road, Andover