Treat Brexit punch-up like Major adult issue

Stop toying with the truth

I’VE just been on parade at the dentist for my morning drill. She did her best to put me at ease.

My dentist is Greek, her nurse Romanian, and they made their usual herculean efforts to pander t o my painfully l ow pain threshold.

Their nationalities are relevant only because between my aarghs and ouches we discussed EU migration. And I realised how much I’d miss them if they weren’t here.

I’m lucky to earn enough for someone to spruce up my home. She’s Polish. I’ve had the same hairdresser for a decade. She’s Italian. Morning coffee comes with a Latvian smile.

My personal experience of EU migration is positive so immigration is not an issue for me in this referendum campaign.

Brexiteers argue that only by leaving the EU can immigration be curbed, which is true. But it’s not a clinching argument in itself. They must demonstrate how that would make Britain better.

You might feel differently if your GP is too busy sorting out the waterworks of Polish plumbers to see you. Or your local school teaches in double-Dutch because so many children are from Holland. But if immigration has no adverse impact on you, the economic uncertainty of Brexit is more worrying. This is where David Cameron lets the side down.

He treats voters as if we’re so dumb we can only deal in absolutes. To the PM everything in the EU garden is rosy.

Just as to Brexiteers the EU is the compost heap. Both positions are equally absurd.

Cameron could learn from Tory predecessor Sir John Major. Major was never the best of speakers, so it’s fitting his best speech wasn’t one.

During the 1997 election campaign the Tories were riven by as many EU divisions as now.

The issue then was not leaving the EU but whether to join the euro.

Major gave an off-the-cuff assessment to explain why, on balance, he was holding off.

He wasn’t sure that decision was right, but in his judgment it was the best call.

That’s honest statesmanship. That’s talking to voters as grownups. That’s what t his campaign lacks. And it’s putting my teeth on edge.