The European referendum will shape the character of this country for decades to come. It will decide how Britain’s laws are made and how its borders are monitored. It will signal to the world what sort of welcome we intend to offer to those hoping to live and work here. It will alert financial markets about our faith in an imperfect present or an unknown future. And, whatever the result, it will send a powerful message to Brussels that must be heeded.

“Remain” should be a vote for continued access to the single market and more British influence over it. For most this would be a pragmatic rather than enthusiastic choice, made despite the behaviour of Brussels rather than because of it. “Leave” would be a vote of no confidence in the European project so shattering that it would rock it to the core, with unknown and possibly alarming consequences.

This referendum is a choice between change and a version of the status quo; between risk and risk aversion. Only one side has inspired voters because change is more exciting than continuity, and because the status quo has become a byword for frustration.

Five years ago, in a speech to the House of Lords, Shirley Williams professed astonishment at Britain’s inability to recognise the scale of the EU’s two greatest achievements — preserving peace in western Europe after the Second World War and bringing democracy to eastern Europe after the collapse of communism. Her bewilderment was understandable, but since that speech the EU’s agenda has narrowed and its effectiveness has dramatically diminished.

The institutions that run the world’s biggest trading bloc foster democracy in new member states but are themselves undemocratic, meddling and short-sighted. When Britain bucked the European trend to record robust economic growth three years ago, Brussels’ response was to demand an extra £1.7 billion from the Treasury. When the 2015 refugee crisis threatened to overwhelm the European asylum system, the EU failed to prevent it doing so. Germany broke ranks and opened its borders, leaving Hungary and the western Balkans to improvise with razor wire fences. When David Cameron sought a new EU relationship for Britain, he was offered token concessions on benefit rules and the rubric of the Lisbon treaty. This was not a Europe that was truly listening or open to reform.

It is a Europe that has ceded all the best lines to its critics. In a nation divided, it is the Brexiteers who seem to stand for freedom. Their dream may once have seemed unlikely but is now close enough to touch. Their vision is of a proud new independence and their account of how to get there has the romance of adventure. A clean break, they argue, will end uncontrolled immigration and confound unelected authority. They are freebooting cavaliers to Remain’s sturdy roundheads.

In their joint TV debate appearance, Boris Johnson and Gisela Stuart performed a duet with the refrain “take back control”. No wonder. The need for greater control of Britain’s borders and legislative processes is evident to many voters. So is the appeal of action over inertia. Tory Remain campaigners would have been hard put to show enthusiasm for their cause even if most were not already Eurosceptics. Flailing for a narrative half as compelling as Brexit, they have slumped in opinion polls while their opponents have been, to put it kindly, cavalier with the truth.

The Leave campaign has not needed to varnish reality, but has done so anyway. It is not true that Britain sends £350 million a week to Brussels. According to the UK Statistics Authority, the actual figure is £136 million. It is not true that EU migration is the main cause of pressure on the NHS. That pressure comes from an ageing population and the rising cost of treatments. It is not true that Turkey is on a path to EU membership, for all that Mr Cameron was a supporter of the idea until as recently as 2014. Since then, Ankara under President Erdogan has shown decreasing interest in accession, which takes a minimum of 15 years and which France and Germany would veto anyway.

It is not true, finally, that Brexit would answer at a stroke the prayers of those Vote Leave is wooing. This is especially so in Labour strongholds where most social problems predate the EU’s expansion and most immigration is from outside Europe. What is true is that EU migration to Britain is more than three times higher than Mr Cameron promised before the last election. It is bringing change and anxiety about change, and successive governments have failed to invest adequately in extra capacity where schools and public services are strained.

Immigration has for centuries fuelled this country’s enterprise and creativity. Its net effect on the economy is to boost employment and tax revenues. It has brought Slovak hotel staff to Lerwick and given London an energy and bustle to rival New York’s a century ago. Nonetheless, concerns about a population rising towards 80 million are broadly felt and Remain may be severely punished for neglecting them. By addressing them Brexit has touched a chord.

For those who fear Britain is losing control of its destiny, seizing back control is an appealing notion. Sovereignty is precious. Yet it is never absolute. Every alliance and international body that Britain has joined for its own good, from the International Monetary Fund to Nato, demands some pooling of sovereignty. The question for many undecided voters is practical: would Brexit deliver on its promises or be overwhelmed by unintended consequences? It is impossible to say. As Martin Lewis, the consumer champion, has written in The Times: “Anyone who tells you they know what will happen if we leave the EU is lying.” That said, a vote for Brexit is unquestionably economically riskier than a vote to remain.

Experts overwhelmingly concur. Paul Johnson, of the fiercely independent Institute for Fiscal Studies, puts the chances of Britain being worse off after a vote to leave at 90 per cent. The Treasury has projected an “immediate and profound” downturn in the short term in the event of a Brexit win, and a 15-year outlook of less trade, less investment and less growth than if Britain stayed in. The Bank of England, the US Federal Reserve, the IMF, the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and nine out of ten economists polled by Ipsos MORI broadly agree.

It is fashionable among Leave campaigners to disdain expert opinion, but fashion is not a good guide for so serious a decision. The best-informed deserve the most consideration. These include Sir David Ramsden, who oversaw the Treasury’s analysis of the risks of Brexit, and who produced the civil service’s sound advice to stay out of the euro. The leaders of Rolls-Royce, BT, BAE Systems, Centrica and Carphone Warehouse are among an overwhelming majority of employers who back Remain. Every business that trades with Europe, small, medium or large, benefits from the single market. The people who own and run these companies have a high tolerance for risk in general, but not in this case. When entrepreneurs as diverse as Michael Bloomberg, Lord Sugar and Sir Charles Dunstone say the danger is too great, the British people should take note. Hundreds of thousands of well-paid jobs depend on the judgment of top executives and there is no good reason to disregard it.



Even allowing for campaign hyperbole, the economic perils of leaving the EU are clear. Forging new trading relationships with Brussels and other big economies could take much longer than the two years forecast by the most optimistic Brexiteers. If so, the short-term shock that both sides agree is likely would stretch into a long period of lost growth. EU trade deals on the Swiss or Norwegian model would entail stiff payments and continued free movement of labour. Alternative arrangements would still involve compromises, as all deals do. Relying on existing WTO rules would allow tighter control of immigration but would expose exporters to external EU tariffs that average 6 per cent, rising to 18 per cent for agricultural produce. The City would survive Brexit but would not thrive. Banks that chose London as an EU foothold would no longer have one. HSBC and Goldman Sachs have already indicated they would move their euro-denominated securities businesses elsewhere.

Vote Leave insists that staying in the union carries its own risks. And so it does, but these are less severe than if Britain were shackled to the eurozone. As it is, the United Kingdom has done well in Europe. In the 43 years since the country joined what was then the EEC, per capita GDP has grown by 103 per cent in Britain. That is faster than in France, Germany or the United States and more than twice as fast as in our imperial heyday before the First World War. Since joining as the sick man of Europe, Britain has grown into its most vibrant economy, at least for the moment.

Elsewhere, Mr Johnson’s description of the eurozone as a “graveyard of low growth” is apt. Average youth unemployment across the area stands at 21 per cent. In Greece it is more than double that. Resentment towards the EU is widespread. A recent Pew survey showed that the EU was as unpopular in Spain, Greece, France and Germany as it was in Britain. Across northern Europe, Eurosceptics watch Britain’s referendum campaign with fascination and not a little envy.

There is enough truth to the cliché that the EU is run by a pampered and arrogant elite to corrode the union to its foundations. It faces an imperative to reform, including reform of the rules on freedom of movement. If enough countries want a brake on numbers, they should be allowed to have one. There is a real risk of the EU collapsing if it fails to rise to the challenge. Brexit would heighten that risk, especially if Brussels’ response were to drag out withdrawal negotiations pour encourager les autres. The spectacle of a European existential crisis would delight the world’s autocrats, none more than Vladimir Putin.

Nato remains the guarantor of European security but the EU is a symbol of western soft power that Mr Putin scorns and seeks to undermine. Were the union to fail, the danger of tension between its members would rise, and so would the risk of more Russian adventurism along Europe’s eastern fringe. That is not scaremongering but a simple lesson of history. Were the EU to survive Brexit, a different union would be under renewed strain — that of England and Scotland, whose ruling nationalists would mobilise again for independence within Europe. In either scenario, Britain would be diminished.

Three million EU migrants live in Britain. Two million Britons live elsewhere in Europe. The EU has given them the right to live and work there, but also low air fares, easy access to health care and the rule of law. Regulation is easy to caricature (and we should remember that much of it is generated within this country) but not all of it is infuriating.

The Times may once have been regarded as part of the establishment. If so, those times are past. We will take a maverick view where logic and the evidence support it. We have considered every aspect of the European argument with the seriousness and scepticism it deserves. We respect the arguments of those who would have Britain leave, but on balance we believe Britain would be better off leading a renewed drive for reform within the EU rather than starting afresh outside it. By the same token a win for Remain followed by a limp return to business as usual would be a dismal outcome.

This referendum has rightly been a thunderous rebuke to Europe and a solid Brexit vote should shake Brussels out of its complacency. If Mr Cameron wins, he must seize the moment to galvanise other disgruntled allies from Denmark to Dubrovnik for a new assault on waste, red tape and anti-democratic interference. The Germans and the Dutch, among others, are desperate for Britain to remain because they know we can still play a key role in energising change and preventing France from being a hindrance to free market reform.

Such a campaign would be a legacy worth having in the limited time that remains to Mr Cameron as prime minister. A leader who has won a general election last year against the odds, and then a referendum against formidable opponents such as Michael Gove and Mr Johnson, plus against the groundswell of national distaste for Europe and for unhindered immigration, would be at the peak of his powers. He could go down in history as both an effective campaigner and the leader of a reform movement in Europe that would prevent it sliding into a disharmonious federal state that would ultimately rip it apart. No one should underestimate how tough a task that would be. It may not sound as exhilarating or romantic as a defiant march to Brexit, but it is the better choice for Britain and Europe.