BEYOND the new iron curtain of the European regulatory and tariff wall lies a world full of opportunities. It is time for Britain to leave the EU and re-join the world beyond the wall.

It is time to free ourselves from the shackles of a 1950s institution, driven by unelected commissioners frequently recruited from superannuated politicians as a consolation prize for having lost elections. It is time to trade on our own terms, not only with the EU but also with the rest of the world, as we did before General de Gaulle held up our entry to the EEC while he stitched up the Common Agricultural Policy so that subsidies for French farmers would be paid for substantially by Britain and Germany.

It is no coincidence that our west coast ports like Liverpool and Glasgow have declined since we turned our backs on the Commonwealth in favour of an EEC (now EU) that shares with Antarctica the distinction of having enjoyed zero economic growth during the last ten years. Leaving the EU now will enable us to share in global growth.

Before the EU enstrangled (sic) us in its clinical trials directive, Britain conducted 12% of the world’s clinical trials; we now do only 1%. EU’s obsession with regulating everything into a straitjacket on the pretext of “harmonisation” kills invention and entrepreneurial development, benefiting only big businesses that can afford the cost of compliance and lobbying to kill off competition; and NGOs (pseudo-charitable quangos) that depend on it to fund their CEOs and lobbying operations.

In the 1950s, when the watchwords were ‘bigger is better’, EEC looked like a worthwhile venture. That was a world in which only 50% of British homes had a telephone, letter postage cost 3d, the USSR held sway over its Eastern European Empire, central heating was a luxury, double glazing almost unheard of and charities managed without CEOs commanding salaries beyond most of our dreams.

The world has moved on. Global connectivity gives advantage to the nimble and inventive while the EU is still floundering under the bureaucratic top-hamper of a 1950-60s time-warp. Independent nations like Switzerland and New Zealand are flourishing while the EU lumbers from crisis to chaos. It is high time for us to leave the fusty world of Brussels bureaucrats to those who like that sort of thing; time for Britain to re-join the World and flourish.

The choice for us on June 23 is not between Little Englanders and the rest; it is between an inward-looking, outdated confabulation of superannuated political has-beens and a renaissance of the British free spirit. There will be risks, whichever way we go; but never mind the risks, feel the rewards.

Go for it!

Roger Mathew

Tavistock