The Spectator’s Notes | 18 June 2015

It is natural to assume that, if a majority votes No in the referendum on Britain’s EU membership, we shall then leave. It is not automatically so. After the vote, we would still be members. The government would then — morally at least — be mandated to negotiate Britain’s withdrawal. In theory, unlikely though it may currently seem, the EU could try to block this. Even assuming that it did not do so, the eventual terms of the withdrawal would not automatically be agreed by Parliament and would not necessarily correspond with the wishes of those who voted No. The context for our vote will be David Cameron’s presentation of a package secured with partners to persuade us to vote Yes. There is no negotiated package offered for those voting No. It could well be that, as so often happens in other EU countries who vote the ‘wrong’ way, there will be a second referendum. The pro-Yes government could say, ‘You, the public, voted No. We’re afraid that the following terms for withdrawal are the best we can secure. Are you sure you want them?’ It might turn out — particularly if the first result had been close — that we were not sure, after all. In short, as in the referendum on Scottish independence, there is a ‘What would actually happen?’ problem which is much more dangerous for the side which wishes to change the status quo. Alex Salmond could never answer the ‘What will happen to the pound?’ question. There will be equivalents, at least as grave, thrown in the path of the No campaign. At present, those of us who incline to getting out are the victims of a false logic, which states that because EU membership is bad, British independence is automatically better. Nothing is automatic here: every single point has to be answered, every possibility thought through.