The great divide

Pagreement will inevitably require free movement of people.

That is simply not true. The EU currently has 109 trade agreements with countries outside the EU. More than 100 of them have no “freedom of movement of people” clauses.

The UK is the largest importer of EU goods and services, so this will give us a very strong hand in any future trade negotiation with the EU. With or without a trade agreement, as a free and independent nation, we will continue to trade with EU countries, just as China, Russia and the United States do today, under World Trade Organisation rules.

We have a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council; we are one of the world’s seven most powerful industrialised countries (G7); and we are members of the G20 forum which accounts for 80% of world trade.

Does any of that suggest we are too small, too poor and too stupid to contemplate life outside the European Union?

It is our EU membership which denies us the freedom to trade internationally on our own terms.

As an EU member state, decisions are made for us based on the interests of the EU 28 – not the UK. The European Union deliberately blocks the UK having its own relationships with the rest of the world. When we quit the EU, we will be free to negotiate and maintain trade agreements throughout the world; and of course we will continue to trade with and visit our continental neighbours.

It’s simple enough: Do we wish to be a self-governing, independent and democratic nation, free to act in our own best interests, or do we prefer to live in a state where the effective government, comprising the EU institutions, is not elected, is not accountable and cannot be sacked?

Ukip’s Jim Gascoyne argues the case for leaving the EU