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Here is the latest in our series reflecting on the Brexit process with regular BrexitCentral authors and others who have played an important role in our journey out of the European Union. Here are the answers to our questions from Matthew Elliott, our Editor-at-Large, who was of course Chief Executive of the Vote Leave campaign.

BC: When did you first come to the view that the UK would be better off out of the EU? Did you ever think that the EU could be reformed from within to make membership tolerable for the UK? Tell us how your views developed over time on the issue.

At the risk of opening myself up to a great deal of mockery, my interest in Britain’s relationship with the EU goes all the way back to my school days, when I wrote an article for my school magazine on the case for and against the Euro. It deepened during my time studying at the London School of Economics, where I interned at the European Foundation, who were the main think tank battling to prevent further transfers of power to the EU and, in particular, to keep the pound. I then worked in the European Parliament for a number of years, before setting up the TaxPayers’ Alliance in 2004. At the TPA, we had a longstanding campaign against wasteful spending by the EU, which including me co-authoring ‘The Great EU Rip-Off’. So when the Eurozone crisis struck shortly after the AV referendum (which I had been involved in as Campaign Director of NOtoAV), and it became apparent that Britain’s relationship with the EU would once again come to the fore, my longstanding interest in the issue was reignited.