7 REASONS WHY WE SHOULD LEAVE THE EU

It is not just about the €uro. Or the fact that we have had to bailout a currency we chose not to join. It is not the €uro sclerosis – the fact that the trade bloc we joined in the early 1970s which then accounted for 36 percent of world GDP, will account for less than 15 percent in 2020. It is not even really about the anti-democratic nature of having decisions made for you in Brussels.

No. The reason we need to quit the EU is even more elemental than all that.

Put simply, Europe cannot best be organised by deliberate design. From the Common Fisheries Policy to the common currency, being part of the EU means trying to do things according to some kind of “blueprint” determined by a Brussels élite. It makes things more or less bound to go wrong. Indeed, the more insulated from public accountability the €uro System has become, the more inept it is.

By withdrawing from the EU, we can organise economic and social affairs in this country not by deliberate design from the top down, but more organically and spontaneously. From the bottom up. Instead of common financial service rules, we might instead allow competing exchanges to offer different approaches and see which one works. Rather than a Common Agricultural Policy for millions of farmers, we might, you know, allow millions of farmers to each have their own farm policy for their farm.

In an increasingly networked and interdependent world, the more successful societies are those that allow more decentralised decision making, by harnessing and balancing opposing forces. Britain’s refusal to be reconciled to being in the EU is not ultimately anything to do with flags or anthems. It’s because we know in our bones that it is a daft way to run a whole continent. I suspect it is not only the Brits who will soon be demanding the freedom to opt out.