I was the keynote speaker at a regional conference today on Europe. I stayed on for the rest of the conference and was struck by the strength of support for the European Union expressed by a wide variety of participants.

A local government leader from a South Yorkshire district spoke of how, when the coal mines closed and his area was hit by mass unemployment, only the European Union seemed interested in doing something to turn around the situation with its regional funding – something the people in his area would never forget.

A council leader from a West Yorkshire district (not Labour) praised EU programmes to alleviate poverty and regenerate her patch - and even a Conservative leader of yet another Council praised the economic benefits of belonging to Europe. Similarly, speakers from business, universities and others were positively gushing in their praise for the EU.

This underscored something I have been struck by in the past: outside the arena of national politics and the media, those who actually deal with the European Union tend to have a positive view of it. Those who don’t, and those whose views of the EU are shaped only by what they read in the newspapers, tend to be more negative.