Cue music, dust off the dancing shoes and lead your partner to the floor… there could be trouble ahead.


Anne Pickles A whole 16 weeks of it. Bitterness and backbiting; bitching and bickering; tall stories, emotional irrelevances and downright lies are already turning hot air blue. There’s not a chance of sensible discussion or debate.

That referendum date is finally set in stone and it’s going to be a rough ride towards June 23. Hold onto your tin hats – but please don’t mention the war – big guns are blasting off all over the place. There will be casualties.

I suppose I should own up at the outset. I want in. It’s a gut instinct and I make no apology for it. I like being a British European and, while fully aware of the faults and flaws of that cumbersome EU club, I’d rather be in it than out – pretending this country is big and strong enough to stand alone.

But that’s just me. And, when all said and done, what I want is neither here nor there since more people are talking about who will win The Voice and the FA Cup than how the in-out vote will go.

Furthermore, I have terrible trouble placing faith in the likes of Iain Duncan Smith and Nigel Farage to deliver guidance on how best to benefit the most people who need – erm, benefits. Know what I mean? Can’t do it.

As if they aren’t bad enough, we’ve yet to see the full quota of so-called celebrities enter the fray. Stock up with Gaviscon, we’re going to need lots of it.

Emma Thompson, for instance. She entered early with her description of Britain as a “tiny little cloud-bolted, rainy corner of sort of Europe, a cake-filled misery-laden grey old island.” Silly woman. At least I know it won’t rain any less, if we stay in.

Personalities with scripted nonsense will cloud all the issues before we’ve done – if they’re not doing so already. Gut-feeling, I reckon, is as good a guide as any when making a decision.

Northerners will be most likely to want out. That’s understandable. In the north we’ve been consistently passed over when goody bags have been handed out from Westminster. Why would we expect any advantage to come our way from Brussels?

And can we trust the largely undemocratic EU to protect our interests? As things stand, no we can’t. But by the same token, I don’t trust our own less than democratic government to protect what we value either.

Is that though a good reason to walk away in a sulk? When do we stop walking… when there’s nowhere else to go?

“Ah but…” said one impassioned Outer, in efforts of persuasion, “We can unelect our own government. We can’t do that to Jean-Claude Juncker.”

Hmm… voting our own out before they’ve managed to sell off the NHS and put 80-year-olds out to work is on the wish list. But is it doable?

Across continental Europe – according to media reports from France, Italy, Germany and Spain – there’s much disgruntlement over Britain being offered special (if smallish) privileges in order to persuade us to stay.

A fox is upsetting the chickens. And that’s no bad thing. Not so far as the EU is concerned anyway. I’m no fan of David Cameron but he has at least thrown a UK fox into the EU coop… even if his intentions were purely to rescue the Conservative Party from tearing itself apart.

It might yet rip into its own fabric with fatal results. There’s nothing quite so ugly as friends turning against each other. And they will. They have.

So, I’ll go with gut, making no apology or effort to persuade anyone else this way or that, other than to suggest you go with yours too.

And to add that while there’s music and moonlight and love and romance… if you’re asking, I’m dancing.