My argument against Daniel Hannan's "Fantasy" anti EU rant in theTelegraph today

Fantasy stuff. Useful though, on  "Know your enemy" grounds. Political obsessives are usually laughing-stocks, or dangerous. I haven't quite decided which Mr Hannan is - maybe a bit of both. The Europhobes are either ignorant, rude bigots like Farage or pseudo-intellectual bores like Hannan. His life long (it seems) obsession about the EU has blighted his career. "Oh that's just old Dan banging on again". So how do I know that Hannan is wrong, culpably wrong? Well I can work it out for myself because there is no quantified case for Britain to leave the EU - indeed it is absolutely the reverse. Were the case even slightly as Hannan would like us to believe it was don't you think that the serious commentators in the media would have said so, and that a major political Party at some point in the last 40 years would also have said it? 

I intend to play personally an active part in the EU Referendum campaign when I hope those of us campaigning for a "Yes" vote will organise ourselves properly to rebut the likes of Hannan with facts and arguments. It's not difficult. And I hope that we will challenge not just Hannan's lies but the gross jingoism and faux-patriotism (seasoned with bigotry and prejudice ) of the Farage wing of the "Out" movement. A senior LibDem politician said to me yesterday that her absolute pro-EU position was "for her children". Exactly. Let's look FORWARD not BACKWARDS - the challenges of the modern world demand cooperation not retreat.