Europe is a thorny issue at the best of times; but since the start of the Eurozone crisis, it has become positively toxic. Barely a week now goes by without a Eurosceptic commentator delighting in the idea that the Eurozone will soon collapse, leaving them justified in their opposition to the project and clearing the way for British withdrawal. Yet, there is a strange blindness in the particulars of this argument, especially for those Eurosceptics who approach this from what now is a right-wing perspective (socially authoritarian, economically liberal) in the UK. They seem to have failed to have grasped the full weight of the consequences of economic liberalisation and what this means for the governance of markets and the governance of the UK.

Laying aside the obvious problem - that any collapse of the Eurozone would inevitably devastate British banks, trade and much of our economy, reducing us to penury as well as the Eurozone - the deeper conceptual problem with right-wing Euroscepticism is that it those who advocate it also press for freer markets. Free global markets are, in my eyes, a good thing. They have lowered the price of many financial services and made the price of commodities far more predictable, even cheaper - despite the catcalls of left-wing commentators that they make everything more expensive. In particular, for an island nation such as ours, we should welcome the chance to trade with a far greater share of the world through liberalised markets for money, goods, services and even labour. Our history inclines us to look outwards for our wealth; from just across the Channel to the other side of the world. 

Yet as the ties of trade and finance that bind the global economy together have grown more powerful and penetrated deeper into our lives, the need to regulate them accordingly has grown. Even the most ardent classical liberal will admit, as Adam Smith does in the Wealth of Nations, there is always a role for government - as the provider of justice and order, at the very least. With companies operating in many countries at once an increasingly common occurrence - and companies whose supply chains and financial requirements cross borders even more common - the need for common regulatory frameworks and agreements is greater now than ever. 

States are no longer up to this job, and they have responded with a panoply of organisational structures above their level. The WTO, BIS, OECD, NAFTA, UNCTAD, ASEAN and many more such bodies have taken on varying levels of regulatory authority as part of their mandate. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is an excellent example - it has ruled on everything from US steel tariffs to Antiguan complaints about American restrictions on gambling (incidentally, Antigua won). Yet as the WTO has matured and continued to try and press for more liberalised markets, it has found it necessary to begin to expand its role. 

Trade cannot be considered in isolation - it is related to too many social, economic and political issues to be detached. Countries want to know that the goods they are buying were not produced in an environmentally harmful way, for example - not only because the pollution can damage them, but also because it gives other countries an unfair advantage by opening up potentially cheaper (at least at point of production) ways of manufacturing. Workers rights are also commonly raised - arguably unfair competitive advantage can be gained from working people for 12 hours a day, paying them less than a dollar an hour and avoiding expensive safety regulations.  The WTO has found itself increasingly drawn into these debates in recent years - increasingly, it finds itself confronting domestic political issues, such as workers rights, environmental protection and agricultural subsidies, because these have become entangled in the debate around trade.

Thus, we face the problem with the argument in favour of withdrawing from the EU, and yet pressing for freer markets, and indeed free trade with the European Union. The example cited by UKIP is Switzerland, who have a free trade agreement with the EU and yet remain outside. What UKIP do not mention is that Switzerland is required to follow European law on areas including public procurement, agriculture and science. Switzerland can decide which laws to implement, but it cannot shape the laws as they are written - it can only turn them on and off, rather than trying to get its voice heard. One can only imagine that the same outcome would be true for the UK - the EU regulatory burden would not shift, and the UK would lose any ability to shape the regulation as it was formed. Indeed, Switzerland pays into the EU budget even though it is not a member. The falsehoods abound.

But even if we lay aside this argument, we have to return to the central point - that states have begun to recognise that globalisation takes power away from them and moves it up, or down, the scale of political units. Consumers, communities and continents are arguably increasingly important, where as centralised states face huge challenges. No one state can stand up to the financial markets for long - even the US has discovered there is a limit to their patience - so states have responded by pooling some sovereignty to regain control of their destiny.

That is the key phrase - pooling and gaining. We cannot expect to have freer markets and not change how we regulate them - we need to have regulatory authorities that can cross borders, without having to chew through a tangle of bilateral treaties. With 193 UN member states, any attempt to create a truly global system of regulation for anything would soon end in a messy failure, a tangled web of treaties with clashes and incomprehension galore. If we want to remain relevant, we have to change the way we respond to globalisation - we have to push for strong regional and global organisational structures to assist cross-border co-operation on regulatory issues. Like I have already argued, individual states are increasingly less powerful when facing markets, or even the world - a lone Britain at the WTO will be pushed aside with swift ease by the remaining 26 EU members, or America, or China, or any number of other powerful groups. The best way to respond, the best way to preserve our influence and power, is to join up with other states and craft a common response to what are, after all, common problems.

It goes beyond trade, of course - fishing stocks, pollution, crime, tourism, finance; all of these forces take little or no heed whatsoever of borders. As an island so very close to a large continent, we need to take account of, and be involved in, decisions made on that continent that affect the water, air and resources we cannot partition off from them. I want to see a European Union that takes account of these things and works productively to solve them. This EU is different from the one we have today - this EU is transparent, fiscally solvent and accountable more directly to the people of Europe. But this EU shares with the current EU the same underlying recognition of hard political and economic fact - the changing nature of the world economy requires a dynamic response which recognises the diminishing power and influence of the state.

So we are tied to Europe - by virtue of common geographical space and resources, by virtue of economic ties and by virtue of the inevitable bringing in of new issues to any organisation, especially one that considers something so bound up in our economic life and history as trade. We should be in Europe, shaping laws, demanding reforms and building institutions, rather than outside, carping and floundering about in the face of the winds of globalisation while we decide how many laws we must sign up to keep the EU’s trade barriers open to us. That is the choice - I am waiting for someone to make it loud and clear to the British people.