One of the most potent arguments for staying in the EU is the uncertainty that would supposedly be unleashed by a departure.

But staying in would involve increased uncertainty over some important issues affecting our safety, including whether the UK would contribute to an EU army and whether the EU would take over the UK’s (and France’s) permanent membership of the UN Security Council.

But when people talk of certainty and safety, they also refer to matters economic.

That is my subject today. It is true that if we were to leave the EU the immediate situation post-departure is more uncertain than if we remained. But that is trivial. In practice, there would probably be little immediate difference.

What the supporters of Remain are really arguing, though, is that we cannot be sure how things would develop over the succeeding years, including the terms of our trading relationships.

This is true. Yet the idea that a vote to stay means that things will stay the same is an illusion because the EU is changing and the world is changing, too. In several key ways the EU could evolve, paraphrasing the words of Japan’s emperor at the end of the Second World War, “not necessarily to the UK’s advantage”.

And:

Not only is our demographic position different, but our pension system is also radically different. Our pensions are largely funded, whereas theirs are mainly not. This threatens a major crisis for them as the demands of pensioners on the working population rise sharply. What if the EU imposes some sort of one-size-fits-all pensions policy? 

In helping us to make up our minds about the institutional arrangements with which we may best face an uncertain future, for all the things that we don’t know, we do know this: we functioned perfectly well as an independent country before we joined the EU; our economic position has strengthened since then; most of the world does not belong to the EU, and does not wish to; the EU’s economic record is poor because it has made misguided decisions. 

Most importantly, whatever the future throws at us, if we were outside the EU, we would have the power to respond in our interests. If leaving the EU is a leap in the dark, then staying in is a leap in the dark with both legs shackled together and our arms tied behind our back.

David Fuller's view

Here is a PDF of Roger Bootle's article.

I think this is one of the more objective articles that I have seen on Brexit.  No one knows what the future holds but since arriving here in 1969 I have always felt that there was a great deal to like and admire about the re-emergence of Europe following horrors of WWII. Today, I share the views of many people in the UK; we love Europe but not the EU.