Yes indeed, let us talk about economics. Let’s look at the real economic impact of the European Union on Britain and Europe.

We can dismiss most of the claims for the “single market” – too often an excuse for a morass of politically driven legislation that costs UK business about £600 million a week. In the 20 years since the dawn of the 1992 Single Market programme, there were many countries that did far better than the UK at exporting to the EU; 27 non-EU countries did better at increasing their exports of goods, and 21 did better at ramping up their exports of services. Of course they did: American and other non-EU businesses have excellent “access” to the EU, but aren’t wrapped in EU red tape, whereas we have only 6 per cent of companies trading with the rest of the EU – yet 100 per cent of them have to comply with EU law.

And is the EU booming, thanks to the “single market”? Of course not. Since 2008 the US has seen gross domestic product go up by about 13 per cent; the EU’s has gone up by 3 per cent. The EU is a graveyard of low growth; the only continent with lower growth is currently Antarctica. That is partly because of the sclerotic one-size-fits-all Brussels approach to regulation; but, worse, in the last decade the EU has been suffering from a self-inflicted economic disaster – the euro.