The Daily Express tells is that it is the first national newspaper actively to campaign for Britain's withdrawal from the EU. To that effect, it it mounting a crusade and asking the public to join it. We are very pleased to see this, and hope that the newspaper of Beaverbrook prevails on this important issue. However, there is a small but important niggle. Getting out of the EU is not solely an Express campaign and the newspaper doesn't own it. In fact, it is very much a Jonny-come-lately.

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I'd say that all Jonnies come lately are extremely welcome.

As it's said 'better late than never'.

Meant to say, why don't you contact them Dr North, Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained.

It does look like an attempt a status grabbing and circulation raising.

What's the use of this - embarrassing


My first impression is, a bit like the Church of England, they're atheists at the top. Unless they reach out to you as a staff writer it's going to divert energies from revolutionary action and may play into the hands of the Conservatives.

If they don't ask you to write for them we'll know the answer.

They know who I am, where I am, what I do and have all my contact details.

It all looks very good until you see the same old talking heads ... Hannan, Carswell, Philip Davies, and then James Pryor of the EU Referendum campaign. Then you realise that this is not a serious campaign. Within weeks, the paper will have lost interest. Its "sources" have nothing interesting or useful to sustain a campaign.

It is, of course, a welcome development. The Daily Express has been getting noticeably more eurosceptic for some time.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon gets a good mention but nothing about his many years as Chairman of the cross-party Campaign for an Independent Britain (CIB) - of which he is now joint President with Sir Richard Body.

CIB just sent its new pamphlet "A HOUSE DIVIDED. Can Parliament serve two Masters - the Nation and the European Union" to every MP and Peer. The timing could not have been more propitious. Most MPs are woefully under-informed about their present position of powerlessness . The article on the Lisbon Treaty in the booklet by Tony Coughlan of the Irish National Platform is up to the standard of even this august blog. The British Church Newspaper has just given "House Divided" a very favourable review and editorial mention. Perhaps Richard might care to review it?

Getting out of the EU certainly is not solely an Express campaign but that said did anybody ever envisage the day a national newspaper would make such an unambiguous statement?

I certainly didn't so for that reason I will, at least initially, regard a BOO voice in the MSM as a force for good as, in sheer numbers, it will reach and hopefully inform and educate more people.

I do hope that they make full use of your expertise though Richard if your other commitments permit.

The problem with the EU has always been that it's always been in the distance and everything seems to come from Westminster. That's one of the reasons why when attention is focussed on it at the Euro elections there's a significant Eurosceptic sentiment expressed and why it doesn't register at GEs. Thus allowing Europhiles to say that people aren't really interested in 'Europe'.

I don't have much faith that the DE campaign is going to be a snowball causing an avalanche, but it might. At least it brings widespread attention to the questions of the EU and the Euro and might help raise the level of understanding a little bit above the idiocy of a sentimental attachment to the £ on one hand and talk of how the Euro would be good because it would avoid changing currency when going on holiday, on the other. The sheer paucity of the debate has worked to the advantage of those foisting The Project on us.

It's sad and depressing that your talents are wasted in this way. I'm a member of UKIP, though I've always made it clear from the beginning that my loyalty lies with the cause not the party.

I still don't deviate away from the view that it won't be; newspapers, parties et all who get us out but ironically more EU integration - when the EU government becomes ever more visible. As you often argue slaughter is ever more inevitable.

As far as I'm aware this is the first newspaper that's had a front page headline on getting out of the EU, there's been headlines for a referendum but OUT, I don't think there has.

The EU know that the majority of people in most of the member states are turning against them so perhaps seeing this as a front pager might just stir other coutries to do the same. What the Express must not do is let this go. And I don't expect Clegg, Cameron & Hague are best pleased with the headline.

You never know the DE might have fell in that the MSM are the only ones not regulated by the EU, yet. I don't include the Guardian, BBC of course, they've always been an arm of the EU & government. And I wonder if any other newspaper will follow suit. Nah too much to ask that.

The Daily Express is a popular (populist) newspaper and reaches out to a mass of people.Like any newspaper it will know a trick or two about how to engage the masses in a debate .
Too many EUrosceptics concentrate on EU issues which are of limited interest to the ordinary Joe , and forget how to "turn" people to their way of thinking.

For starters lets all buy the Express while they run with this topic (and drop it when it drops the subject ).

Remember the small successes of the EUro monetary union crowd was based on a simple premise - you wont have to change money when you go abroad , and considering what a small point that is , they did well out of it.

The Express has set itself a very difficult task, in trying to keep up interest and momentum in EU issue. I find it difficult enough to do on this blog, even wth the advantage of knowing the subject inside out. It does not even have that advantage. My expectation, therefore, is that the paper will only run with this for a short while, and then sparodically, before it slides so far down the running order that it becomes invisible. And there is a down-side to this. The euroslimic tendency will say "look at the Express and its campaign ... that didn't get anywhere ...".

Agree that this is the problem , but at present there is no alternative . How can we push this agenda along ?

remember Ghandi`s saying ; first they ignore you, then they laugh at you , then they argue with you , then you`ve won.
I think we`may have moved to stage three .

There is no longer any great need, I feel, to work to secure the collapse of the EU. That is going to happen anyway. The jib needed is to work out a suitable structure for UK self-government.

Richard,

You've always been fighting against the tide. There have always been people looking both ways, e.g. the Tory Eurosceptics who have been open to the accusation of masking insincerity as pragmatism. There's always been the flow of the tide which has been an undeniable reality.

I suspect the DE has twigged that the tide is turning and this is one to get aboard. It appears that the tide is at least reaching full flow and ebb is inevitable. It may well be that this is a false dawn and it's as well not to get carried away with it. It's also fair to point out that you can't get the UK out of the EU unless you get the EU out of the UK, or put simply, it's easy to blame the EU for too much and the real reason for much of the irritation is a tendency in much of the wider government of the UK to see the EU as a glorious way to facilitate and legitimise things it wanted to do anyway but didn't have the guts to; passing it off as 'orders from Head Office', which they'd been enthusiastic in formulating, was very handy.

When the tide turns properly, all sorts of people who have been advancing the cause of the EU for years will emerge as never having liked or trusted the idea. They were following orders or were mislead. Coping with uncomfortable bedfellows is a fact of life to be dealt with. It was never going to be as simple as advancing a logical argument against the EU which everyone could see the sense of and therefore acted rationally to do everything they could to get us out.

The Euroslime will always find something to say in favour of the EU or against its detractors. No doubt when the whole rotten edifice collapses they'll be saying that was merely a corruption of the EU vision brought about by 'bankers' and be working to inflict a new one.

I think the DE initiative is to be welcomed cautiously.

Yes, I agree ... cautiously. But also without much optimism.