Spectator and Brexit

The Spectator backs Brexit. In the 1975 referendum, only two UK publications argued for what is now called Brexit: the Morning Star and The Spectator. Our coverline, then, was ‘Out – and into the world!’. We use it again today. No economist knows what 2030 will look like but as Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, observed, the wealth of nations is decided primarily by the health of their ‘laws and institutions’. We asked the EU to reform; it refused on suspicion that we’d be too scared to vote out. Set aside whether we’d grow by 29pc or 33pc over the next 15 years: we cannot look the other way while our laws are undermined from Strasbourg and our democracy from Brussels. The history of the last two centuries can be summed up in two words: democracy matters. Let’s vote to defend it on 23 June.