Will be voting

In 1975, I was on the committee which organised the In campaign at Oxford.

We were told that we were joining the European Economic Community.

A community of nations with access to the world’s largest free market.

The landscape has changed significantly and not for the better.

Successive EU treaties means that the EU now makes more than half of our laws, enforced by a European Court of Justice.

The irony of course, is that for the first time in history, we have a “court” that is driven by a political vision of a United States of Europe and not justice.

The court overrules British concerns in over three quarters of cases.

The worst mistake the EU has made was introducing the single currency.

No monetary union in history has been successful without political union. So although Germany prospered,unemployment in southern Europe rose to over one third of young people.

We kept the pound but we are not immune to the failure of the Eurozone.

Unable to find work in their own countries and seeking a better life, around a quarter of a million people from southern and eastern Europe came to Britain last year, under EU ‘freedom of movement’ rules.

This has been great news for large corporate bodies who have an endless supply of cheap labour and for wealthy people who want au pairs, but devastating for working people.

The Bank of England agrees that wages have been suppressed because of migration.

Worse still has been the impact on housing. We now face an unprecedented situation.

A younger generation who will never enjoy homes at the standard of their parents.

The ratio of average incomes to house prices is now over eight to one. Rents are spiralling too.

Up to half of people’s wages are paid in rent. And the biggest driver in our runaway population growth is immigration.

Taken together, I find it difficult to argue that the EU works for young people.

And how will this situation be improved, when Turks get visa access to the Schengen zone?

This will lead to a freedom of movement zone from the borders of Iraq and Syria to the English Channel.

Having spoken to hundreds of voters in the last few months, those who are voting Remain often do so because they are afraid of the apocalyptic and often ridiculous economic predictions made by the Remain side.

It is impossible to make such bold forecasts about the future, and until recently the Treasury agreed. What is certain though is that the status quo is not on the ballot paper.

The European Union will continue to press for more and more power, further weakening our ability to make our own laws and secure our borders. It will also continue to lose ground.

When I campaigned to join the EEC in 1975, Europe made up 35% of the world economy. It is now 17% and falling. We are locked into the slowest growing continent in the world.

So a vote to leave is a positive vote. It is a vote for democracy. It is a vote for a humane and controlled immigration system.

It is a vote for Britain, freed from Brussels constraints, to engage with the whole world, as we used to, and as most countries outside the EU still do. The scene is set to do so.

Global trade barriers are now at their lowest point in history thanks to the World Trade Organisation.

It is time to become “normal” again and re-join the rest of the world as a sovereign state.

We can only do this by voting to leave.

Julian Brazier says introducing the single currency was the EU’S worst mistake