Perhaps for the reasons explained above, there has been very little discussion of the deal by those who support remaining in the EU. The deal has become like the first Mrs Rochester, an early mistake, kept out of sight, and never spoken of in case it causes too much upset.

But we need to talk about the deal.

We need to talk about the deal because the PM made clear that the EU had to change radically if it was to succeed and it hasn’t. With youth unemployment at more than 40 per cent in Spain and more than 50 per cent in Greece, and Eurozone growth still anaemic, we could be on the hook for more bailouts and subsidies to prop up this failing system.

We need to talk about the deal because the failure of the EU to acknowledge the need for reform means it will respond to the challenges of the future as it has to the crises of the past — by doubling down on deeper integration. Now, in another example of the failure of bureaucrats to learn from experience, the EU’s response to the mass unemployment created by the euro is a Five Presidents Report urging more Brussels control of banks and taxes. In the same vein, the EU response to the migration crisis exacerbated by Schengen is to press ahead with an invitation to Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania and Turkey to join the Union. Because anyone given EU citizenship has the right to come into our country there’s every chance many more people will want to come to the UK in the future, putting pressure on public services, increasing demand for scarce housing and, in particular, asking more of our NHS.

And we need to talk about the deal, because by giving up our veto we give up our power to stop these developments and insulate ourselves from their effects.
The only way now to show we think the deal is not enough, the only way now to secure effective reform of the EU, the only way now to reinvigorate democracy across Europe, is to Vote to Leave on June 23.

From a British point of view, we would regain control of our borders, regain control of the £350 million of gross public expenditure which the EU supervises every week, regain control of trade so we could forge agreements with the rising nations of the East and the developing nations of the South, regain control of security so we could lead in the fight against extremism and regain control over our politicians by making them genuinely accountable once more for their actions.

But while voting to Leave would benefit British voters by giving us back control of our own destiny, it would bring even greater benefits for the EU, by energising, at last, a drive for proper reform.

At different points In campaigners like to argue either that Brexit would lead to EU nations using their massive muscle to punish us, or that Brexit would lead to contagion and the collapse of Europe — just as Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union collapsed following secession from those unions. Manifestly both cannot be true. An EU without the UK cannot simultaneously be a supercharged leviathan bent on revenge and a crumbling Tower of Babel riven by conflict. But both points have a grain of truth. There will be anger among some European elites. Not because the UK is destined for a bleak, impoverished future on the outside. No, quite the opposite.