Brexit could be just what the EU needs

The European Union needs to be dramatically reformed, says Merryn Somerset Webb. Voting for Brexit could be the best way to achieve that.

Six of the eight opinion polls released in the last week suggest the UK will vote for Brexit. The number of "don't knows" has fallen and most appear to have turned into Leave voters. That's making this week a tense and unpleasant one for those convinced that the world as they know it will collapse on a vote for Brexit. But are they more hysterical than this really merits?

I think they might be. Firstly, the odds of Leave winning are a lot lower than they seem, as those who had a ringside seat at the Scottish independence referendum will know. Then too, everyone was semi-hysterical about a group of polls suggesting the result was too close to call. It turned out to be nothing of the sort: the status quo has a history of being the big winner in referendums and it brought home a pretty decisive victory in Scotland too. It is still part of the UK and it is staying part of the UK.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.