Douglas Carswell

The campaign to keep us in the EU has begun

John Major was going to reform Europe. Oh yes!  Federalism has "reached its zenith", he said in 1995. There needed to be not inconsiderably less centralism. Reform would see powers "returning ... to the nation state". There would be less red tape and interference.

Then came the treaties of Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon, which passed ever more power into the hands of unelected and unaccountable Eurocrats.

Tony Blair also set out to reform Europe and make it more to our liking. After much lobbying, he got his fellow leaders to sign up to the Lisbon Agenda in 2000. These reforms would turn the EU into the "most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world" by 2010. There would be less red tape and interference.

Then came an economic crisis caused by the very integration and single market overregulation that was supposed to be Europe's salvation. Fourteen years on, Europe is the least dynamic continent on the planet.

Now David Cameron says he wants to reform the Euro club too.

There will be less centralism, with more power returning to the nation states, just like last time.

Those that we elect to national parliaments are, apparently, to have some sort of power to block Commission proposals. Some of the time.

Pan-EU immigration is to be controlled, or something. And there is to be less "unnecessary interference". And – as ever – the promise of less red tape.

Good luck with that, guys. Surprised you didn't throw in a line about subsidiarity, or closing the democratic deficit, too.

When the In/Out referendum comes, David Cameron and I will, I imagine, be on opposing sides. I will certainly be fighting the coming election as an Outter. The important thing we do agree on is that we should give everyone that In/Out choice in 2017.

Ed Miliband refuses to let you have a vote on our EU membership. By voting for the Conservatives, we stand a realistic chance of being out in 40 months' time. Or not, if all those powers have been returned to nation states, immigration brought under control and all that red tape scrapped.

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