The next EU power-grabs won't make the headlines. They won't even be reported. There will be no bang-the-table rows. The PM will scarcely be aware what's going on, if at all. It will be one of those instances where the EU thinks a regulatory measure completely unrelated to trade comes under its core competences and will use all whatever legal instruments at its disposal to force all EU members to vote a particular way at one of the many top international tables that make the rules.
It is doubtful MEPs will even notice since they won't be involved. At best it will make a specialist trade rag that few ever read - especially not celeb columnists. When the legislation reaches the European Parliament it will be dressed up as an innocuous environmental measure, and waved through on the basis of sentiment rather than substance.
And once this is done, a precedent is set, possibly even a court ruling that effectively makes anything under that particular subject heading an EU competence - whether or not it is specified as such in the treaties. And knowing that Britain will never ratify a further treaty if subject to referendum, that will be the future modus operandi by which ever more powers and freedoms are irrevocably confiscated.
In this Brexit debate we're not hearing clear cut arguments as to why the EU is worth the sacrifice. All we're hearing is the litany of technical difficulties Brexit may create, which while complex, could be overcome were there the political will and the instruction from the people.
But that should be the warning. If you thought Brexit was complex and a bit tricky at the moment, just how complex and irreversible do you think it's going to be after another ten years of political, economic and social integration?
The modus operandi of the EU has never been to make aggressive moves with core members, instead preferring to bide its time, salami slicing a little at a time, gradually so nobody notices - and the constituencies that such moves affect are too small to stop it and too powerless to kick up a fuss. It is a silent assassin of democracy.
And so as much as the Leave side is being pressured to say what out really looks like, there are none on the remain side with sufficient understanding of the beast to say what will come to the fore and what further powers will be confiscated, and how our influence will further be eroded - and if they could, they would with remain silent over it.
The whole point, if there is any, of the European Parliament is to be the goalkeeper against the executive. To stop unwanted strikes against the people. But in practice, it's a toothless talking shop where we send our political rejects out of protest. Mouth-breathing miscreants we would never consider appointing to Parliament in a million years. Though the margins these days are slim.
In this the people are not empowered to say no to the supreme government of Europe, member states have little in the way of defence, and those institutions that supposedly work as our early warning system do not work.
And while the EU will never go at core concerns of the public, it will chip away at the edges over arcane technical regulation, which may not excite or have the public manning the barricades, but little by little they will strangle the vitality out of the economy, causing our leading industries to stagnate - and foolishly, like BMW, they will beg for more. As we know, in their claustrophobic minds, the answer to European economic problems is "more Europe".
Meanwhile the EU spreads its tentacles into more areas of civil society. Gradually it will assimilate our aid and foreign policy, causing us to abdicate our own responsibilities and our own direct input, to have the EU put our money and our choices into the hands of transnational NGOs. They who are largely accountable to nobody - they who the EU pays to lobby itself. And when the Euro-elites go off and cause another Libya, we will ask, who are you to speak for us and how do we get rid of you? And you know what the response will be...
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