Report comment

Mr Goldsmith is fighting old campaigns as enthusiastically as Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim: in this case the 2016 European Referendum campaign. No one seems to have told him that Project Fear was stood down long ago, if not yet entirely disbanded.

There’s no harm in an old campaigner’s reliving past propaganda triumphs (or even propaganda disasters) but it is very difficult to rehash propaganda with conviction after the war has been well and truly lost. If Mr Goldsmith’s heart had been in his task I’m sure he would have made at least a plausible pretence of explaining to us how we in the UK are “protected” by the EU’s interference in a matter of Polish constitutional law. Unless of course any British towns are thinking of defecting to Poland – which is unlikely, if not unthinkable.

The “identity” or lack of identity of the EU is not something we will need to concern ourselves with for much longer. I will add, though, that if Mr Goldsmith isn’t yet aware that the Rule of Law would get short shrift from Brussels and the ECJ if it ever found itself in conflict with Ever-Closer Union, he doesn’t know as much about “Europe” as he thinks he does.