Tuesday 17th May

Oh dear, is there nothing we can say positive about the EU?  All the remain campaign are relying on is Project Fear, and it is now getting ridiculous.  Every day another Financial Institution or President of America or Governor of the Bank of England is wheeled out to warn us of Economic disaster, of mass unemployment, and worst of all – falling house prices – if we are stupid enough to vote Leave.  We are being bombarded by all this bombast, wave after wave, a veritable tsunami of opinion all on the same side.  And it is getting worse; Cameron has even suggested that World War Three may erupt if we leave the EU, or of course not – he actually commented on how the EU had kept the peace in Europe for seventy years, but such is the febrile nature of the “debate” that commentators extrapolated his comments.  But this is what Project Fear has achieved.

And where it will go now with almost six weeks still to go?  Will God herself descend in a ball of fire to warn us of Armageddon just around the corner should we be so foolish as to fall for the charms of Boris and the Brexiteers?   Which of course raises the question as to why Mr. Cameron, if it would be so dangerous to exit the EU, did you ever give us the chance of voting to do so?  Why, only a few weeks ago, there you were on telly, saying that unless the other leaders agreed to your changes you would actually campaign to leave yourself.

But worse almost than this disaster scenario is that there is nothing positive being said about Europe.  The message seems to be “Look, we know the EU is a mistake, but it will be an even bigger mistake to get out now”, which is hardly inspiring.  And just wait till the real arguments about immigration start…..

I fear that the whole thing, granting the referendum itself, was a terrible mistake, an electoral gamble to fend off UKIP, which could go seriously wrong.  Or, like Scotland before it, Cameron may snatch defeat from the jaws of victory – and the mood for Brexit will grow despite maybe narrowly losing the vote and UKIP will go from strength to strength, Boris will become the next Prime Minister with a promise to have a second referendum after a ‘real’ renegotiation, and on and on until we leave the EU, and Scotland then leaves us too.