Why it's right to stay in the EU The single market remains our biggest source of business where half our exports end up and Europe remains a huge source of investment into our country. We dislike the Emus" politics and its institutions (including its single currency) but risk being complacent and in denial about its vital importance to our GDP. There are good prospects that several world trade deals will be completed in the next 18-24 months including a US-EU agreement, a giant pan-Pacific deal and an EU deal on a real single market for services - which account for about 75pc of our economy at the moment. To access and leverage those sorts of deals in the interests of more jobs and higher living standards here, we need to use our position inside the EU as part of a 500m-strong market, not on our own as a 60m market. We want to be in the single market but out of the single currency, which is possible. But there is a political price to pay for that position which will take negotiation. Demanding changes from the EU that are not deliverable is simply counterproductive. A subsequent referendum that takes us out of the EU, or even further to its fringes, would have a deeply chilling impact on our jobs and living standards. A large part of our single biggest industry - financial services - would decamp rapidly for a start, taking countless allied service sector jobs with it. There are areas of reform within the EU that we can achieve, such as to the single market, working time directive and the Emus" budget. It's time for painstaking and skilful negotiation, not a stampede for the exit which would jeopardise our economy.