I keep hearing it from people in Loughborough: “If we leave the EU, they would still want to trade with us”

This misses the point. Within the EU an order from Bulgaria to Taylors of Loughborough to supply bells for a church would involve no more red tape than an order from Brighton.

However after leaving the EU we would have to establish an agreement with Bulgaria (as part of the EU) covering the terms and conditions, and duties if any, for the import and export of bells.

The Royal Eijsbouts bell foundry in the Netherlands would have no such problem. (This is the foundry that cast the bell for the London Olympics)

The Dutch company would be much more likely get the order.

And so, in many tiny ways, the England “Proudly Independent and trading freely” would lose out, over and over again. We would hardly notice it, but the financiers who lend the country money can see this coming, and are rapidly devaluing the pound.

In years to come we might wonder why it is that the Dutch are so much richer than the English. Of course, by then, there would be no talk of the UK. Scotland would be independent and a member of the EU.

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