This is Paul Adamson and I'm in conversation with John Pete.

John Pete is the political editor of the Economist newspaper and was its Europe editor for 12 years.

John, you've just written a major report for the Economist on the United Kingdom's relations with the European Union.

I think one of the conclusions you drew was that the outcome is difficult to predict.

So I will not ask you to predict the outcome.

But what I will ask you is what are the arguments do you think which have the most traction

both on the Leave and the Remain camps?

I think to start with the Remain camp, I think part of it will be that Britain will get a certain

number of concessions for David Cameron, which he, as Prime Minister, will be able to portray

as, you know, these are reforms in the European Union and it's heading in the direction that we

want. I think that will help a little bit, but I think much more important than that will be

two things, really. One,

that I think it is going to be easier for the Remain campaign to persuade people that the economy

and jobs would be at risk, were we to leave? Because I think there are quite a lot of jobs that

are dependent on trade with the European Union. There are quite a lot of jobs that are dependent on trade with the European Union.

There are quite a lot of foreign investors who are in Britain partly because they want access

to the European single market.

And I think that the line that the economy would suffer were we to leave is going to be quite

a strong one in the campaign.

And the second thing that I think will benefit the Remain campaign is to dwell on the fact

that if Britain left, it is very unclear what relationship it would have with the European

Union, whether it would retain some form of acts as a single market, whether it would

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