Cameron should tell us truth about what staying in the EU really means

He still pretends that, deep down, he’s actually a Euro realist/sceptic/cynic/agnostic; which is why he still trots out a variation of, “We accept that the EU needs major, ongoing reform and needs to be kept in check, but we still think blah, blah, blah.”

All of which has led him to the absurd position that, “we’re better in than out, but we’re in with opt outs”; members of the club, yet free, or so he thinks, to ignore the rules we don’t like.

He will say anything to ensure a Remain majority: anything other than the truth.

I would have much more respect for him if he just set out a case for remaining that wasn’t built around the supposed economic meltdown of the UK if we did leave. I say supposed, because it isn’t all that long ago that Cameron was telling audiences that the UK would survive quite nicely outside the EU.

Which economists and business groups was he listening to at that point? And why isn’t he listening to them anymore? Who is he listening to, now? Is it the same people who warned of economic collapse if we didn’t join the euro? Or the same people who failed to see the crisis that wiped billions off pensions and savings a few years ago? Or the same people who can’t explain why so many EU countries have to be propped up by loans and bailouts?

Here’s the reality: whether inside or outside the EU there will be economic crises. That’s the nature of economics. Yet what Cameron has done is negotiate a ‘deal’ in which sterling will still be pitched against the euro on the international money markets, meaning that we’re still subject to the vagaries that accompany the ups and downs of assorted investors and speculators playing the markets. In other words, we won’t be protected by keeping sterling, nor saved from a euro meltdown that will have a knock-on impact on us. His so-called opt outs are not worth the paper they’re written on.

And nor are his pledges that the UK won’t be part of any further integration.

Here’s a paragraph from last week’s Economist, which sums up the position of the Remain camp: “Post-Brexit, Britain would find it harder to keep close foreign policy and security links with the EU, not least because it would no longer be in the room. There is a broader geopolitical point, too. Partly because its foreign policy role has grown, the EU has become a key piece of the West’s defence and security architecture. Brexit would weaken the EU – and so the West.”

The foreign policy and security cooperation that we were assured, during the 1975 referendum, would not become a central plank of our membership, has now become a central plank. Cameron may pretend, as he does with the euro, that we can somehow step aside from what our 27 partner states are doing; but he cannot pretend that when those 27 act jointly on economic, foreign policy and security issues it will have nothing to do with us. We will have nowhere else to go. We will be sucked in. The so-called opt outs don’t begin and end at Calais.

We were also told that there wouldn’t be an EU army. And yet no senior figure from within the EU has been able to issue a categorical statement of denial re a Times lead last week that “plans drawn up by the EU’s foreign policy chief, foresee the development of new European military and operational structures, including a headquarters. They are supported by Germany and other countries as the first step towards an EU army.”

Hmm, Cameron assured us that these plans had been vetoed in 2011, yet here they are back in play. Not only back in play, but also with a loophole that allows progress without a majority vote.

A flag. A parliament. An executive. A president. A currency. A foreign policy. A security policy. An army. The right to force laws and rules upon a member country. The willingness to threaten those who would dare leave. That’s a super state we’re talking about. That’s an empire we’ve seen built before our very eyes.

The very thing we were told couldn’t happen. The very thing we were told wasn’t even in the minds of the key players in the 1960s and 70s. All of this happening and yet Cameron – along with those who think that money is the bedrock of everything – still cling to the delusional notion that the UK won’t be further sucked in.

The ‘establishment’ got it wrong in 1975. Or maybe, as some of the NO lobby argued in 1975, the ‘establishment’ knew exactly what they were doing; and were doing it as part of a coordinated strategy with the Euro empire builders.

I will be voting Leave on June 23. I know exactly why I’m voting that way: and it has little to do with the economics or immigration (which, generally speaking, has been good for the UK). I’m voting Leave because I don’t support the building of this new empire.

For those leading the Remain campaign, please do the electorate the courtesy of explaining the entire consequences and long-term impact of staying.