Stephen Pollard

Because in the long term it really isn’t going to matter that much what deal we do – or even if we fail to reach agreement.

The EU is a dying anachronism and will probably be gone in anything like its recognisable form within a decade.

Everything about the EU remains an extension of its creation in the 1950s. The idea of a huge regional bloc that moves either together or not at all was a product of an era in which governments ran much of the economy and citizens were effectively told what was good for them.

Today we live in a very different world. And while economies on other continents are adapting to that world, the EU remains a lumbering throwback to the 1950s. Instead of enabling and pushing for growth, its structures and rules make it a fundamental hindrance to growth and prosperity within its member states.

It stifles innovation – there isn’t a single European company, for example, that defines the digital world of Google or Apple. Indeed the EU is still fixated on Microsoft, a company that, like the EU itself, peaked in another era.

Even its boast that it is the world’s largest market will soon be redundant. In 2013 the combined economies of the Commonwealth overtook the Eurozone’s. And the IMF forecasts that in 2019 the Commonwealth will be larger than the EU itself – creating 17.7 per cent of global output compared with the EU’s 15.3 per cent.

The EU is in terminal decline. It is already the only trade bloc where growth rates are stagnant or barely positive. Add to all that the political consequences wrought by the imposition of the euro and the outlook for the EU is disastrous.

In Greece, the euro has had devastating consequences. The Greek economy has long been a basket case but what has happened there exemplifies the fundamental problem with the EU. Instead of Greeks themselves deciding how to deal with their crises, they have been dictated to by the EU. Democracy has been neutered. Even the Italians, for so long in the vanguard, are growing disenchanted.

Last December’s referendum was not on the EU but it’s clear that one reason why the then PM Matteo Renzi lost by 59.4 per cent to 40.6 per cent was the public’s concerns over the EU’s handling of the migrant crisis and the euro.

ECONOMICALLY and politically the EU is from another era and simply cannot cope with the demands of the modern world.

But however anachronistic it may be, and however likely that may make its break-up as it becomes increasingly unable to cope, one event in a few weeks may bring that much closer.

Should Marine Le Pen win the French presidency, not only will it be a disaster for democracy, it will also be a damning indictment of the EU.

Clever as her spin and marketing have been, she is the leader of a fascist party. How appalling that voters in France feel so disenchanted with their Eurofanatic elite that they could even contemplate making the leader of the National Front their president.

This is where the EU has led Europe. And it is why it is a doomed body that will, sooner or later, destroy itself.

‘The only trade bloc with stagnant growth’

LEO McKINSTRY IS AWAY