EU

The Prime Minister has announced that we are to get an in-out EU referendum but subject to a caveat that I will come back to shortly.

Legislation for the referendum will be drawn up now and taken through parliament immediately after the next election.

There will be a renegotiation of our terms of membership to rid us of political interference and to re-boot our relationship based on free trade. There will then be a straight in-out referendum — the British people deciding whether to accept the new terms or walk away.

Some will argue that a referendum should be held now. But the Conservatives do not have a majority in the House of Commons and so would only be able to get this through with the support of Labour or the Lib Dems neither of whom are onside. And besides surely it would be folly to go straight to an in-out referendum without at least discovering what renegotiated deal was on the table — a renegotiation assisted by the fundamental changes required in the EU in response to the Eurozone crisis.

There is though, as I suggested, earlier a vital caveat to all this. It is a matter of politics.

If we are to have the referendum set out by the Prime Minister last week, we will need to have a Conservative majority government after the next General Election. Anything else and you can say goodbye to our chance to have our say for a long while to come.

Labour and the Lib Dems are against a referendum. And UKIP? Well a vote for them will not yield a single seat in Parliament but could prevent a Conservative government being formed next time around with the most bitter and bleak of consequences for those who support UKIP's principal raison d'etre.