Whatever the price is, I will pay it gladly

I'm having some quite candid conversations this week with people who are only just gravitating toward the debate. I think we have reached that point we people are now seriously mulling it over. It is absolutely clear that the official campaigns on both sides are not trusted which is a part of the reason why I get asked. Also because I have not knowingly told untruths nor attempted to gloss over facts I don't like.

And there is a big one that cannot be escaped. Brexit in the short term will cost us and will cause a recession. Not a big one so that most people would notice, but we would take a hit. I have been quite clear on this.

But even undecided voters who are not as invested as I am in this understand that there is a wider context and that it might be a price worth paying. Especially for parents thinking of their children.

This elicits incomprehension from economists who insist we will be worse off. Even outrage that their wisdom is not heeded. Are we stupid for ignoring the experts? Is this some kind of Trumpism? An anti-intellectualism stoked up by a right wing tabloid press?

And that really tells you everything you need to know about academia and our ruling classes. They presume. They feel entitled and assume that we are (and should) only be motivated by material concerns. It's a snobbery more than anything. The notion that we would not vote for a higher principle and make sacrifices for it.

In some respects I view this referendum as a test for that very reason. I want to see if the British public will vote on a principle. Whether they will vote for the relative certainty of the EU or whether they will vote for democracy with all that entails. The latter is the country I want to be part of. The former I do not.

And if one tweet exemplifies the crassness, snobbery and condescension of the bubble dwellers it is from Edwina Currie, pictured above. Fitting somehow. This woman has always been the opposite of decency of and integrity. "Sovereignty is overrated" says she. Her premise is that we should surrender our sovereignty and turn our backs on democracy for the sake of material concerns as though it were a binary choice.

It amounts to "trust in your betters, plebs - for only we can deliver you from yourselves". And this is why I will vote to leave, whatever the cost may be. To be free of these people I will pay any price a thousand times over.