Douglas Carswell

The Future's Bright, the Future's Global

David Cameron's tête-à-tête with François Hollande this week showed – once again - that his promised EU "renegotiation" is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Six decades of ever-closer union have demonstrated beyond doubt that the European project knows only one direction of travel. A reformed EU will never be an option.

But Britain must not be afraid to quit the unreformed EU. In fact, we have everything to gain from leaving.

Britain is uniquely placed to benefit from economic cooperation with the rest of the world - if we break free from the world's only declining trading bloc. As Business for Britain's excellent Change, or Go report observes: we already have global reach in financial services; our language is the lingua franca for business worldwide; and our legal system is shared and emulated by countries across the globe.

Yet the EU is holding us back from globalisation. Instead of promoting trade, it prevents it – by raising tariffs and other barriers against countries outside Europe. Instead of making it easier to do business, it makes it harder – by undermining the global competitiveness of British companies with pointless regulation.

Moreover, the costs of staying in vastly outweigh any benefits. Even in the worst case scenario, the future cost of potential tariffs for doing business with the EU is nowhere near the current cost of EU membership. At the same time, the cost of our exposure to an ever more likely Eurozone collapse will be far greater if Britain is still chained to the sinking European ship when it happens.

Britain has been a global trading nation for 300 years. It has been part of the Single Market for only 40. There is every reason to believe that Britain can and will prosper outside the EU, and no reason to expect the EU to recover from its continual downward trajectory.

Let's not be 'little Europeans,' shackled to the failed protectionist orthodoxies of the past. There is a whole world of trade opportunities waiting. It's time for us to take them.

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