Listening to the likes of Ian Duncan-Smith (IDS, barely distinguishable from IBS) rave about their battle to reassert sovereignty by walking away from Europe, his claim that it is all about intellect and integrity makes me laugh. As intelligent Tories – not necessarily an oxymoron – are at pains to point out, sovereignty is not the same as virginity: you have it or have lost it. It is a tradable commodity which every nation regularly negotiates for the greater good. We are, for good or ill, one of the United Nations and signatory to many international agreements. We are subject to the binding rulings of the International Court of Justice, without a Briton serving as a justice. We are part of NATO, committing our armed forces to action at the direction of foreign generals. And so on.

 

With Europe, we chose correctly to stay out of the eurozone and the now collapsing Schengen agreement. (Borders I crossed at speed last summer are now subject to pre-1992 delays. Those in and out of the UK will become more difficult to negotiate, and the horrors of Operation Stack visited on Kent last summer will become the norm.) So there are substantial precedents for the exercise of independent thought within the EU, despite what the ‘straight banana’ fantasists would believe. The Eurosceptic mind is like an ingrown toe-nail, a painful growth as an extreme part of the body turns in on itself, with no discernible benefit and the serious threat of infection. The thickening and discolouring caused by fungal infection and the smell of gunk as it builds up appropriately extend the metaphor. Nothing could be further from the cerebellum and the exercise of intellect.

In this 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, Farage’s foot soldiers claim it is time to repel the Normans, as if the defeated Harold was head of a pure Anglo-Saxon nation and we merely need to block the Channel tunnel to get back to a permanent summer of brass bands and morris dancing. If the little Englanders get their way, the Scots will certainly desert the disunited kingdom and it will give Ulster republicans powerful grounds to press again for a united Ireland. The idea that the English-Welsh rump will have more effective bargaining power than the European Union can only have credence with the economically illiterate and the terminally dumb. Unfortunately, democracy gives those millions an equal vote. You only have to look to the United States to see how powerful the stupid ticket is, where even a Bush has been outdimwitted by a Trump.

Cameron has brought this insanity on himself, and the threat that a referendum result for withdrawal will destroy his premiership and wreck Osborne’s succession chances are insufficient consolations. The toe-nails recommend Norway as a shining example of what our little England could become. I have just returned from there, where their access to the European free trade area requires them to observe most of the European Union’s rules, including the free movement of economic migrants, despite having no say in formulating those rules. We too would have to go along with everything as before, but now with no say, or face prohibitive tariffs. As a direct result of Norway’s over-reliance on the beneficence of North Sea oil, that commodity’s price collapse has forced a 30 per cent devaluation of the Norwegian kroner. (It is ironic that the SNP’s shaky economic argument in their independence referendum also placed total reliance on an escalating oil price, that would now threaten bankruptcy had they won.) Conservative estimates suggest that GB’s EU withdrawal would cause a minimum 20 per cent contraction in the UK economy, with a similar devaluation of sterling. The hot money currently flooding London would rapidly disappear, and substantial parts of the financial sector would relocate to Europe, probably to Frankfurt. London’s house price inflation would at last stall, but so would the jobs which fuel it.

If the toe-nails win, they will be free to wave their union jacks freely, as they are now, but they will have to be redesigned to take out the St Andrew saltire. That, like so many of the attendant implications, is beyond their limited intellect to grasp. Whilst the thought of taking any action which supports the current shower in Downing Street is deeply repellant, this is an issue which is in grave danger of being decided by the lowest common denominator, by bigotry and prejudice. It therefore behoves everyone interested in the free movement of cultures and people – every bit as much as of goods and trade – vociferously to support staying in the European Union and hobble the fetid feet of reaction.