The EU referendum is bigger than politics. There is no place in the debate for anyone who puts party before country or career before conscience.

David Cameron spent most of January jetting around Europe trying to strike a deal that might persuade voters to support his cause. He was doomed to fail given the intransigence and federalistic ambitions of the EU. He tried hard but in the event he achieved little. If you ask for little you will come back with little.

My view is that the deal he brought back is a million miles from what the public hoped for. There is nothing on sovereignty, on the return of powers to Westminster, on direct control of immigration, on treaty change and nothing resembling the promised reform of the EU or fundamental change to our relationship with the EU. If this is as good as it gets — it’s not good enough.

The in campaign’s main weapon is scaremongering. They want to convince us that outside of the EU we would fall apart and we would cease to trade with the rest of Europe or the rest of the world. This is of course completely unfounded and discredits those otherwise sensible politicians and media barons who keep repeating the lie.

First of all the EU is a shrinking market. When we joined with the seven countries all those years ago the EU had 36% of the global trade but now with 28 members it has only 17% and it’s falling.

Major European companies rely on sales to the UK, much more than we rely on sales to them. Do the doom-mongers really believe that Audi, Mercedes, BMW and Volkswagon do not want to deal with us. And if they can sell to us we can surely sell to them.

The political elite would have us forget our past and accept that we need the help of unelected, amateur dictators based in another country to run our own nation. They would have us succumb to the notion that the French and Germans know better than us. Britain is much bigger than our little island off the coast of Europe might suggest.

We are the 5th biggest economy in the world; we invented the world’s international language; we are a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a leading member of NATO; we started the industrial revolution; we invented the first parliamentary democracy now copied by most of the civilised world; we were the fist to set out laws protecting individuals; we invented a judicial system copied by most of the world.

We should be proud of our country and our parents and grand parents who fought and died for our freedom and for the freedom of Europe.

We can and will prosper outside the EU. I want our country back.

Cllr Bob Allen

Heaton & Lostock Ward