Spectator debate: Is it time to leave the EU?

 Christopher Booker, of the Sunday Telegraph, proposed the motion by taking a blast at his own side.

Christopher Booker, of the Sunday Telegraph, proposed the motion by taking a blast at his own side. The present Euro crisis had inspired Tory Eurosceptics to talk of “a re-negotiation” and a “repatriation of powers”. This, he said, utterly misconstrued the EU project and its “sacred aim” to strip nations of their rights and “never to give back a power once ceded.” He called the EU “a 40-year-long slow-motion coup d’etat” and “a crazy make-believe project” whose hubristic ambitions were now facing nemesis. He heaped scorn on Herman van Rompuy for claiming that the best remedy for the Euro was “more Europe”. Booker said the disintegration of the EU is “as certain as anything in history”.

Phillip Souta, director of Business for New Europe, hung his case on two pegs. The benefits of Europe are vast, he said.