EXCUSE me while I yawn. The endless debate over British membership of the European Union and the upcoming British referendum on EU leaves me cold. And I can see myself becoming even more bored with the subject in the weeks and months ahead.

I didn’t always feel this way. Like many other EU-watchers I believed it was important that, for once and for all, Britain lay to rest its chronic ambivalence over being a part of the EU.

Take it or leave it. In or out. Let’s decide once and for all and then move on, either together or separately.

But no, the debate has been raging for months and is going to get even more acrimonious, petty and incomprehensible as time goes on. It is also increasingly irrelevant compared to the real issues facing Europe.

No one is sure when the referendum will actually be held although the date of June 23 now appears to be pencilled in. No one is sure just how British voters will cast their ballot. Many seem indifferent, too busy with their lives to worry about Europe.

But politicians love the grey zone and love to waffle on endlessly about the merits of their arguments. No one sees that the electorates’ eyes are glazing over. This is very true for the Brexit controversy.

For the record, I believe the debate is important and worth having. Europe is in crisis, it has lost all connections with its citizens, and is in desperate need of a new narrative for survival in the 21st century.

Who knows if there is a real debate about Europe, new ideas may crop up about Europe’s raison d’être, the EU’s place in a rapidly changing global landscape and about the relevance or not of those all-important European values.

But that isn’t what is happening. The scope of the discussion is narrow. The contents are extremely light. Britain is focused on renegotiating what Prime Minister David Cameron and his friends have identified as four key issues for their country: reducing inward migration from the rest of the EU by letting EU-migrant workers in the UK wait four years before they can enjoy social benefits, a commitment by other EU states that the UK will not participate in future programmes of “ever closer union”, the transfer back of sovereignty to the British parliament by giving it the right to veto future laws that are decided by the EU and finally, less EU regulation to allow the EU to become more competitive.

Honestly? Is that all? That’s what this endless shadow-boxing is about? At a time when Europe is facing what many view as a make-or-break existential crisis, it appears to be crumbling under the weight of the unexpected arrival of thousands of refugees and continues to face high levels of youth unemployment and an ongoing economic slowdown, Britain wants to tinker with words and play a game of smoke and mirrors?

For most of this week, all eyes have been on a draft deal drawn up by Donald Tusk, the president of the EU Council, which many members of the British government says meets most of Cameron’s demands.

Predictably, the British leader has cried victory while the pro-Brexit campaigners have rubbished what’s on offer by the EU as unacceptable. More meetings will be held, there will be an entire EU summit devoted to the issue later this month. Before that Cameron will visit almost every EU capital to win over friends and allies. Reporters, tired of writing about the refugee problem, are having a field day predicting what lies ahead.

It’s tedious stuff. Amid all the hyperbole, all players appear to have forgotten the picture and the stark fact that the EU that Britain may decide to leave is in dire trouble.

As the Financial Times newspaper rightly pointed out, “the crisis within the EU may soon require a fundamental rethink of the organisation’s aims and methods, well beyond the minor changes that Cameron is able to negotiate”.

Exactly. It can’t be said often enough: it is important that Britain stays in the EU. Analysts have written reams about this but to put it simply, Britain gains a great deal in terms of business, investments and finance, global standing and international clout by being an EU member.

The other way around, Europe needs Britain for a variety of reasons. Europe without Britain would be a smaller place, in more ways than one. Britain talks and campaigns for freer markets, an open economy and trade liberalisation. It engages with China and India in a way few other European countries, excluding Germany, do. Despite the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the government, the country is diverse and multicultural and proud of it.

Certainly, the EU today is a messy place, tempers are running high, compromises are hard to make. If it plays its cards right, however, Britain can help bring back some much-needed sanity to the conversation on Europe’s future.

It may be too late to do this given the obsession with Brexit that dominates Britain’s agenda. For everyone’s sake, I hope there’s still time for wiser voices to prevail.

—The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Brussels.

Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2016