A NEW British political party has been formed. It has not attracted much attention yet, but it has a good name—the Honesty Party—and it boasts three punchy, distinctive policies. Here they are:

We want fewer regulations for the City

We want fewer laws protecting workers against long hours and other impositions

We want to make it harder to extradite people who have been accused of crimes

The Honesty Party is, of course, imaginary. With such a manifesto, how could it possibly be otherwise? Take the proposals in turn. The first is surely out of tune with public opinion: bankers are so disliked that few would vote for lightening their regulatory burden. The second is dicey. Although bosses might desire fewer employment regulations, that probably doesn’t sound too good to employees. And employees greatly outnumber employers. The third policy is the worst of all. Surely it should be made easier to ship criminals out of the country, not harder?

The party is made up. But the manifesto is not. What the Honesty Party wants is, in effect, what Eurosceptics want. Read the Fresh Start Project’s “Manifesto for Change” and it is all there, just not expressed so baldly, and cloaked in a lot of talk about Brussels.

The Fresh Start folks (mostly Tory MPs) do not actually say they want weakened employment laws, for example. But it is not hard to join the dots. They complain about how the European Working Time Directive is a burden on business and constricts Britain’s labour market. They could easily add that Parliament should replace the European regulation with a British one offering similar protections. But they don’t. It sounds like they want to get rid of it entirely.

Eurosceptics will protest that the Honesty Party is a crude caricature of their position, and that they are not hung up on specific policies. What they really want is for Brussels to have less sway over Britain.

The first point is entirely correct: this is a crude caricature. But that should not be reassuring. Politics involves a lot of caricature. Most people do not follow politics at all closely. Any idea that is not expressed very simply is unlikely to get through to voters. And if you do not express your ideas simply, one of your enemies will do it for you.

Here, for example, is the website of a new campaign group set up to oppose a weakening of extradition and other international criminal-justice agreements. This group makes an exceedingly straightforward point: since crime crosses borders, justice must also cross borders. This is arguable. But at least it is understandable. Justice Across Borders has the support of Charles Clarke, Labour’s home secretary between 2004 and 2006. Mr Clarke was a great one for getting on the right side of public opinion. I suspect he has done so here, too.

The Eurosceptics’ second objection, that what is really important is bringing back powers from Brussels, is also fair. But it is beside the point. Trimming the EU is not a distinctive position: every party (even the Liberal Democrats) say they want to do that. Similarly, everybody wants the EU budget to stop growing so quickly. Banging on about that will not impress anyone.

This is the paradox of Euroscepticism. Its broad argument is exceedingly popular. Most people want Brussels to get its nose out of their affairs, and quite a few of them are prepared to walk away from the EU altogether. If you tell people that the City should be protected from new regulations made in Brussels (as opposed to just new regulations) they are likely to agree. But if you don’t—if you simply translate Eurosceptic demands into crude domestic policy prescriptions—they suddenly sound rather odd.

Over the next few years this paradox will be exposed. Those who want to transform Britain’s relationship with Europe will be pressed to explain what powers they want to repatriate, and whether, having brought them back, they would throw them out or pass very similar laws.

This will be tricky. It is commonly argued that the problem with trying to repatriate powers from Brussels is that other countries won’t allow it. The real problem might turn out to be public opinion at home.