I've just now been discussing exactly that with Mrs Steve, DMcG. Emily Thornberry was asked about it at lunchtime and was utterly unconvincing. "We'd go back to the EU for a better deal and if the people don't like it they can vote us down," etc. Load of old waffle and not what I'd call an alternative.

Jim, no-one is pretending that the EU is the paragon of all that is good in the world. Is unwieldy, gigantist and riddled with absurd policies. However, it insists on democracy, the rule of law and on human rights in all its member states. Countries which abide by those standards rarely go to war with each other and that has proved to be the case. It insists on high standards in food production and animal welfare, better than almost anywhere else. It pushes for better environmental standards. It allows people to move freely to find work and new places to live. Looking at the world today, in which we have dictatorships in huge countries with aggressive tendencies such as China and Russia, a resurgence of the far right in South America and in the US (where democracy itself is under threat) and despotic regimes all kvetch the Middle East, Europe is qlmostbthe last bastion of denocracy