LONDON — The little Englanders and their enablers determined to take Britain out of the European Union believe the perfect storm is upon them.

Look across the Channel, they argue, and see the hordes of desperate refugees intent on disrupting the British way of life (whatever they imagine that to be) and living off British welfare. Look beyond them and see the 19-member eurozone mired in the agony of its flawed creation. Look at the whole European Continent, with its sluggish economies and myriad regulations, and imagine a glorious island nation freed from the burdens of an unhappy association with the complex-ridden losers of World War II!

It’s all baloney, and dangerous baloney at that, fanned by the Murdoch press, the anti-immigrant hatemongers of the U.K. Independence Party, and the sovereignty-obsessed conservative backbenchers of Prime Minister David Cameron who believe Britain can boss it again in the world if unbound from the shackles of Brussels and bureaucrats intent on stipulating the shape of cucumbers.

The fact is the European Union has been good for Britain — its economy, its openness, its culture, its financial services and its global clout. Postwar imperial decline has been offset by European construction. The British overcoat has become ampler. But such is the jingoistic clamor that Cameron has blinked and, either next year or the year after that, Britain will vote (for the first time since 1975) on whether to remain part of the European Union. The vote will be definitive.