Labour has chosen to come out positively in favour of continuing membership of the EU. This is a very good thing for the country (it may not be for Labour) because we hear a very one sided argument for leaving, laced with a snake oil cure for everything if we go it alone.
It is not as simple as that. The quit movement have no coherent plan for what comes after. The notion we are going to sign a trading agreement is entirely self defeating (like Alex Salmond’s currency union) because in order to get it, the UK would have to sign up to all the pernickety EU rules, over which it could exercise no control at all. If we stay in but negotiate a better deal, we will then have to recover from all the uncertainty that the threat of leaving has created for UK business and investment.
If the quitters had a bold plan for a free trade area with the US, or a currency union with the dollar, or to lead the reconstruction of the infrastructure of Putin’s Russia or some other big idea, we would be able to judge whether we thought it a runner or plain barmy. But to have no plan except to move out and see what kind of shelter we can find afterwards is plain stupid.