Making the wrong choice for all the wrong reasons will be a very serious national setback. It would be at variance with the whole strategic direction our country must take in an increasingly interdependent and globalising world where our influence for good is best served by pursuing common policies for common objectives with like-minded states committed to peaceful co-existence and mutual co-operation on a scale and covering a comprehensive agenda unparalleled in terms of modern governance among a community of nation states anywhere in the world. If we are serious, as I believe we are, in seeking to use our influence for good on the major issues in our world, all of the empirical evidence confirms that we can best do this with other democratic states in this European Union of common values.