EU referendum: My instinct to vote Leave is not something that can be confessed in polite company

Such an admission might too easily be interpreted as a dislike of foreigners or, worse, a tolerance of Nigel Farage

"The question will be precisely the same one we were asked in 1975: should we stay or should we go?" (Getty)

I find myself in an embarrassing quandary. Like most politicians (ex-politician, in my case), I’ve tended to seek comfort and advice from those of my own tribe whose opinion I greatly respect. I do this mainly because of a strong conviction that they are cleverer than me.

So it gives the system something of a jolt to find that, on the issue of EU membership, I seem to be heading in the opposite direction of friends and ex-colleagues such as Alan Johnson, Denis MacShane and Dan Hodges.

I was never a fully paid-up member of the Euro team. Early signs of unsoundness manifested themselves in my outright opposition to British membership of the euro when it was first launched. The whips’ office had its eye on me after I added my signature to a letter, back in 2002, warning the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, to resist committing to abolishing the pound. And once you’ve decided to oppose that central mechanism for the creation of a European superstate, it’s a fairly short step to being painted as “anti-EU”.

To add to the charge sheet: I never bought the piffle about the EU securing peace in Europe. Peace would have broken out after the end of the war anyway; democracies tend not to fight each other, with or without international political alliances. And, on my occasional trips to the European Parliament – either the original one in Strasbourg, or the replacement one a few hundred feet away, or the one in Brussels where it should be based permanently if they had an ounce of sense – I was always a tad suspicious and resentful of the smug certainty of officials and party apparatchiks that Europe was the future and national parliaments were just so last century.

But my instinct to vote Leave (probably running at 53 to 55 per cent right now) is not something that can be confessed in polite middle-class company. Such an admission might too easily be interpreted as a dislike of foreigners or, worse, a tolerance of Nigel Farage.

My slight cynicism about Europe isn’t helped by the colossal cynicism of David Cameron: he’s not stupid, so he knows his “deal” on reform will change nothing. He must know that we know he knows. Yet still we dance the dance, pretending that sending UK taxpayers’ cash overseas to children who may or may not exist is the civilised way to behave, convincing ourselves that countries which demand control over their own borders are, well, just a bit gauche.

Whenever the vote is held, it is not going to be a referendum on the “new deal” or whatever we’re calling it, any more than the Scottish referendum was a verdict on “The Vow”. The question is precisely the same one we were asked in 1975: should we stay or should we go? In the meantime, if asked over dinner how I intend to vote, I’ll do the sensible thing and change the subject to the range of breads in the Marks & Spencer food hall. Or The Archers.

Tom Harris was Labour MP for Glasgow Cathcart from 2001 to 2005 and Glasgow South from 2005 to 2015