What Brexit looks like

‘So what’s your alternative?’ demand Euro-enthusiasts. ‘D’you want Britain to be like Norway? Or like Switzerland? Making cuckoo clocks? Is that what you want? Is it? Eh?’

The alternative to remaining in a structurally unsafe building is, of course, walking out; but I accept that this won’t quite do as an answer. Although staying in the EU is a greater risk than leaving — the migration and euro crises are deepening, and Britain is being dragged into them — change-aversion is deep in our genome, and we vote accordingly. Europhiles know that most referendums go the way of the status quo, which is why their campaign is based around conjuring inchoate fears of change.

What is the alternative? Well, all the options involve remaining part of the European free-trade zone that stretches from non-EU Iceland to non-EU Turkey. No one in Brussels argues that Britain would leave that common market if it left the EU. Nor, in fairness, do Remainers. Instead, they talk about jobs being ‘dependent on our trade with the EU’, hoping that at least some voters will hear that line as ‘dependent on our membership of the EU’.

So when every non-EU territory from the Isle of Man to Montenegro has access to the European free trade area, which model should we follow? The nations arguably most comparable to Britain, being neither microstates nor ex-communist countries, are Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. All three prefer their current deal to ours: 60 per cent of Icelanders, 79 per cent of Norwegians and 82 per cent of Swiss oppose EU membership. Who can blame them? Norway and Switzerland are the wealthiest and second-wealthiest nations on Earth.

Norway is a member of the European Economic Area (EEA); Switzerland is in EFTA. The EEA was established in 1992 as a waiting room for the EU. It contains what was originally envisaged as a transitional mechanism for the adoption of EU legislation — the ‘fax democracy’ which Europhiles like to bang on about.