I'm for leaving it, I don't think it's good for our economy to have every international deal we make bickered over, slowed down and compromised between nearly 30 other nations. If Iceland, a country of under a million can negotiate trade with China then a country like the UK with 64 million people, one of the most important financial centres on the planet and an incredibly powerful diplomatic history could achieve a lot on the world stage. I think the UK should be truly global, sitting behind protectionist policies acting like a bunch of little Europeans with our eyes only on the continent is not healthy in my opinion.

Also, there's a possibility the EU will try and morph into a United States of Europe which I want no part in. I'd never stand for a European national anthem and I feel far more kinship with other English-speaking nations than with European nations. I'm English and British but certainly not European in any sense other than geography. I think the British government does a good job of representing me, I don't want it to become a mere province of a state that would exist for the benefit of France and Germany. Just look at the fiasco that is the Euro, I don't want that future for the UK.

There's also the fact we're a complete black sheep among European nations, we use common law while they use civil law for a start and the Continent has been shaped by tyrants like Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin while we have remained stable for hundreds of years. British politics is confrontational and the winner takes all to maximise efficiency while on the Continent coalition and compromise is more common to maximise representation. We're not even factoring in the more trivial things like different (and safer) plugs, driving on the left and not fully adopting the metric system. We'll have to change a lot more than other nations to achieve integration at much greater expense.

To quote Churchill, “We have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked but not combined. We are interested and associated but not absorbed. If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea.”