Even with the Eurosceptic Lega party out of harm's way and a massive 209bn sweetener from the EU to help Rome's coronavirus woes it still looks like clever money especially when the Italians twig that as net EU contributors it was their cash all along. But I've always favoured the longer shots, the higher stakes / higher reward gamble, and if pushed I'd say don't dismiss an each way flutter on France.

This morning you could get 10/1.

Which is prescient because this morning too on the other side of the Channel a little anti-EU pressure group was started by a fellow called Charles-Henri Gallois with the slogan take back control.

In polite liberal circles of course Mr Gallois (could he be more French with that name) is being mocked as a no-hoper fringe populist.

On this side of the Channel we have a touch more respect for no-hoper fringe populists these days.

Funny piece of political nomenclature that sneering word 'populist' isn't it? As if being popular with the rank and file public is something far too grubby for the great and the good to sully themselves with.

It's actually the root cause of the EU's massive popularity problems the simple inability to see life from the point of view of the voting rank and file.

It's too early to tell what kind of a man Charles-Henri is.

On the face of it he is just the latest among a growing clamour of political activists who've simply had enough.

Had enough of being dictated to by the above-mentioned arrogant, undemocratic burghers of Brussels.

Had enough of being told how they can and can't spend their money.

Had enough of a supranational state being built on the quiet, as very well-paid politicians with their own agendas milk the system use bait and switch tactics to keep us looking the other way.

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And perhaps even more frighteningly have had enough of how this inability to connect with the rank and file gives succour to the real political lunatics the architects of the EU desperately hoped the project would snuff out forever.

But decades of mismanagement and political disconnect has created the exact opposite.

It is entirely understandable that many people, for entirely right and laudable reasons, wish to leave the EU there's 17.2million of us over here for starters.

But the EU has created an environment which fosters real evil too.

There is a gaping chasm between parties and pressure groups who have simply lost patience with Brussels and their more deeply sinister counterparts who use anti-EU rhetoric as a respectable cover to hide their racist, homophobic and politically hideous agendas.

Strangely this gaping chasm does not seem that obvious to all.

But it needs to be. While both the EU (and national governments) continue to fail to properly address the needs of the people and gain their respect they open doors for the viler end of the political spectrum.

Having a flutter on the next country to leave the EU is a bit of harmless fun but unless Brussels starts to properly address the needs and concerns of the man and woman in the streets there will be no winners.

See the rest here:

Brexit, Frexit, Grexit, Italexit - the whole EU house of cards is about to collapse - Express