Orwell Prize-winner Johann Hari is the new generation’s answer to Polly Toynbee, a turbo-charged Progressive who pops up all over the place.

It was he, you recall, who wrote a wildly wrong account of the railcrash episode in Atlas Shrugged:

Indeed, her contempt for ordinary people extends so far that when a railway worker in ‘Atlas Shrugged’ decides to punish the wicked socialist government by making a train crash happen, Rand implies the passengers had it coming.

As I wrote:

Not only is the cause of the train disaster totally mis-described in this review, the argument quite misses the point.

The core issue is rather that ‘ordinary people’ too have to think, and to have responsibility for the results of their decisions. Sooner or later if we all in our own spheres, high or low, act in a way which in fact risks disaster, disaster is inexorably what we eventually get.

Here he is again in the Independent, burbling away about the horrors which will befall us if we have a referendum on the UK’s EU membership:

The case would become clear at last.

Since the majority of our trade is with the EU, after withdrawing we would have to abide by almost all its rules anyway to be allowed to sell to them – but we wouldn’t have any influence on drawing them up. Think of it as the United Kingdom Isolation Party, where we won’t even be on the sidelines; we’d be outside the stadium, on an empty street.

So we would gain little, but we would suffer horrible self-inflicted wounds. Three million jobs would melt away to a Europe that would now be wrapped away behind tariff walls. The millions of Brits living elsewhere in the EU – one million in Spain alone – would be left stranded, and have to come home, or apply for immigration rights they were no longer entitled to.

Our ability to shape the future of the world, especially on global warming and foreign affairs, would be dramatically diminished.

Eeek.

Or not.

I have posted a comment:

Has J Hari not noticed that the other EU member states benefit hugely from our being members (free movement of workers, weighty EU imports into the UK, large annual net contributions to Budget, main part of the EU defence capability and so on)? The EU needs us too.

Which means that there would, gasp, be a Negotiation over a vast number of areas. The UK would not be bundled unceremoniously out of the door. In most respects life could end up carrying on as now but wearing new legal trousers.

The assertion of ‘loss of influence’ is interesting. If we had to spend ourselves on overseas development all the money we pour into a less than efficient EU development pot, that would buy quite a lot of influence. What if we simply did a new version of the repeal of the Corn Laws and lifted all CAP-style restrictions on the import of food from Africa? That would get influence and friendship on a huge new scale across the African continent. In other foreign policy areas we could use resources freed by leaving the EU to do many new things. We would have our own voice again in World Trade talks. And so on. There would be losses of course, eg in how we contribute directly to EU energy policy towards Russia. But even there we could weigh in under our own steam – we have the weight to do so, if we have the inclination.

We might end up as ragged orphans peering in through the EU window and hoping for scraps. But other positive futures are available. It would depend on how we set about using our new status. Might not there be a surge of national energy and purpose amidst a huge spring-cleaning of unnecessary EU-created process which helped us redefine our role in today’s world, to pretty good effect?

NB I am not (not) arguing for leaving the EU. Maybe we will eventually come to a referendum on the subject, as there is a growing tension between the mood of the European population and the current EU institutional arangements, most noticeably here in the UK.

But those who support the UK’s membership of the EU and the Lisbon Treaty might want to think about not talking scary nonsense which makes them sound ridiculous – and so makes their worst nightmare more likely to come true.

But Johann does make sense in the same piece talking about not demonising BNP voters.

He should have a quiet word with fellow progressive Craig Murray on how best to apply that logic to Poland’s voters too.