"In the intervening years, I have listened to many well-informed people presenting very persuasive reasons why staying in the EU would be a good thing for the UK. For example, prominent UK lawyers of my acquaintance have described to me in great detail how institutions including the EU Court of Justice (analogous to our Supreme Court) have been a great positive for business through their role in unifying EU-wide commercial law rules. Free traders have told me of immense problems that could arise from sudden abrogation of travel and trade agreements, including huge waits for people and goods to clear border customs. Financial people have told me serious reasons for concern that the London financial markets could be badly damaged, and London could lose out in competition to European centers like Paris or Frankfurt.
But to me, none of these things outweighs the fundamental issue, which is that the EU has somehow come to embody the progressive dream of rule by permanent bureaucrats, convinced of their own expertise, who impose increasingly burdensome rules at their whim, and who cannot be voted out or held accountable by any known mechanism. Just in the past couple of weeks, we have a couple of new examples of how far this can go."
