A tramp had chalked almost 1,000 words from a Tory politician's book Why Vote Leave on a Trafalgar Square pavement. "Leave" is the anti-EU lobby, "Remain" the opposite camp. It's a curry-flavoured non-debate. "Save our curry houses," screams Iain Duncan Smith, until recently the works and pensions secretary. The EU is packed with foreigners like the United Nations. They can't appreciate anything as British as chicken tikka masala. Foreigners once confronted a British citizen at a European port with doors marked "Natives" and "Foreigners". "Where do I go," he demanded of an official. He didn't go anywhere. The official didn't speak English.
Our cruise ship's last port of call was Bordeaux, up the Garonne river in France. The Otard cognac people cash in on the medieval chateau, there being the birthplace of the first Valois king, Francis I. Nestling among vineyards, Bordeaux was tranquil. So, early next morning was Southampton, our British landfall. Two hours later, London was quivering with excitement that the media encouraged. Everyone thinks something momentous is about to happen. No one knows what.
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It's a non-debate because whether the Leaves win or the Remains, it will be neither victory nor defeat. Britain is now half in and half out of the EU. It prefers the Queen's pound to the euro. It fears the Schengen visa would let in hordes of foreigners. Britain will still be half in and half out if David Cameron, the prime minister and Remain leader, wins the vote. For, he says, Britain will remain only on re-negotiated terms. No one - probably not even Cameron himself - knows what those terms might be. Like Wallis Simpson hoping Edward VIII could remain Emperor of India even after abdicating as King of England when he married her, British businessmen hope to remain in the free trade area after quitting the EU.
Even as I write, the clock is ticking away for young Brits to register to vote on June 23. A volunteer organisation called Wake Up And Vote released a video showing them being courted like VIPs to register. Nearly 145,000 Londoners did so in the last two weeks. Others who couldn't this week because online registration collapsed suddenly were assured of emergency legislation to ensure they benefit from the precedent of voters being eligible to vote if they are already in the queue at closing time.
Every debate and discussion bristles with conflicting claims. Remain spokespersons insist 300,000 jobs will be lost if Britain leaves the EU. On the contrary, retort Leave adherents, 500,000 new jobs will sprout up. Leaving the EU would save Britain's health service £350 million. No, it won't, because beneficiaries contribute to the service. Exit will damage growth and investment. Exit will benefit growth and investment. Without the EU's baggage, Britain will nimbly forge ahead to make new economic alliances worldwide. Without the EU, Britain will be isolated with no hope of new partners.
So it goes on. Both sides trot out figures to support opposing arguments. Theresa May, the home secretary, bravely told the House of Commons that Britain didn't put up with EU criminals: she had sent more than 3,000 of them packing. "Ah," countered her critics, "they wouldn't have got into Britain in the first place if it hadn't been for that wretched EU! And who knows how many thousands of foreign criminals from 28 EU nations are still lurking in the British Isles?" A peer complained in the House of Lords that the current level of EU migration would force Britain to build a new house every four minutes. The Remains exclaimed, "So what? London wouldn't boom and bustle if one-third of its inhabitants weren't from abroad!"
Duncan Smith complains that Europeans, who enjoy free entry into Britain, are squeezing out skilled cooks from India and Bangladesh. "This is a serious issue. There are 600 curry restaurants closing down because owners can't get the right skilled workers to come in," he said in a London Bridge restaurant called Est. India.
It's the old Commonwealth versus Common Market controversy. The British expected a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose victory. Now, they fear, that's all right but only for foreigners. That's their grouse against the EU. It has too many Europeans.