[Osem]

Originally Posted by Chris

If the EU consisted entirely of the single market I might agree with you, but it doesn't.

If access to the single market required full membership of the EU, again, I might agree with you, but it doesn't.

The cost in terms of loss of sovereignty is now manifestly too high. The European project was never about creating a simple trading area, which is what the UK electorate was sold 40 years ago.

We are a massive export market for several European economies (chief among them, Germany) and we are in a very good position to negotiate terms of access that are mutually beneficial to us and the EU. And, once un-shackled from the need to wait for the EU to negotiate trade deals for us, we can get to the important business of dealing with the great emerging economies of the world on our own terms.

And those British businesses that form part of that 79% of trade that occurs entirely within our own borders, would in future only have to contend with market regulation cooked up in Westminster, where there are only 650 MPs, all of them British and familiar with the way we do business, instead of being forced to implement schemes that are actually designed as a protection racket for some inefficient, unreformed industry in the back end of somewhere hot and sunny where nobody does very much for most of the day.

You do realise that's all jingoistic, racist guff don't you...