His book is not a dusty text but highly readable, even for those who have no special understanding of economics. Of these five volumes, this is perhaps the most wide-ranging. Of course, it is biased, but then all these books are essentially anti-EU. The fact that there are so many says a lot. No one in any of the debates I’ve attended over the referendum is really very keen on the EU. Indeed, most of the pro-EU camp are highly critical of the institution, and see it as bureaucratic, undemocratic, remote and poorly governed. As a consequence, they lack true conviction, and can’t be bothered to write serious works in its defence. Their argument relies almost entirely on a series of scares designed to frighten voters into plumping for the current system because any alternative must be worse.

This cowardly, pathetic stance is typical of the chaos which the EU represents. The eurozone is an unmanageable consortium, while the Schengen border arrangements are close to collapse. The EU itself was sold as a trading pact (the Common Market) but  for many of the Brussels elite is a political project. This contradictory vision is at the heart of the problem. I believe a large majority of citizens in Britain — and probably in much of the rest of the EU — do not want a political merger. They want our country to be an independent nation state, in charge of our own laws — but trading with everyone.  Meanwhile the Commission and other instruments of the EU have other ideas. 

The Institute of Economic Affairs, a respected right-of-centre think tank, has published a manual called Breaking Up Is Hard To Do (£15), edited by Patrick Minford and J.R. Shackleton. It consists of 15 chapters by different authors, covering all the possible ways the EU could reform. It tackles gritty subjects like the Common Agricultural Policy (still consuming 40 per cent of the EU’s total budget), EU employment regulation, fisheries legislation, energy, financial services and transport rules among others. It is somewhat technical but nevertheless provides useful detail for anyone who wants to understand the true facts of the pros and cons of the EU.    Inevitably the tone is Eurosceptic, but the individual authors are by no means one-sided. For example, the author of the chapter on freedom of movement is a confirmed Remain supporter.

Like all such books, this collection works best as a reference source when a specific issue needs to be addressed. It is a handy book to possess even if we vote to stay, since it provides some guidelines on how any renegotiation might take place, and how to judge the results.

The final book of the batch is Europe’s Deadlock: How the Euro Crisis Could Be Solved — And Why It Still Won’t Happen, by David Marsh (Yale, £7.99). It is a short volume, concentrating not on the referendum, but the ongoing difficulties of the euro.  Marsh is an expert on monetary affairs, and wrote for the Financial Times for many years. He knows his stuff and for those who want to get to grips with the challenges facing a monetary union this is a decent primer. His conclusions are not optimistic. He provides a number of possible solutions to the present and future difficulties of the eurozone, but doubts that the politicians and civil servants in charge will take the necessary steps — some of which are inevitably very radical, including full-scale political union.

Almost the entire establishment has ganged up to push Remain propaganda. So the odds against Britain voting to leave are long. But for the contrarians, those who are happy to be in a minority among the London elite, then these books will be nourishing fare. It might just be that in the polling booth, the shy anti-EU vote asserts itself.  Let us hope that once again the intellectuals are wrong-footed — and Britain takes the bold step of embracing democracy,  deciding to control its own destiny, and voting to dump the failed project that is the EU.