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People feel that in too many ways the EU is something that is done to them, not something over which they have a say.

There is a growing frustration that the EU is seen as something that is done to people rather than acting on their behalf. And this is being intensified by the very solutions required to resolve the economic problems.

The EU is not a country and it's not going to become a country, in my view, now or ever in the future. It is a group of countries working together.

People feel that the EU is heading in a direction that they never signed up to. They resent the interference in our national life by what they see as unnecessary rules and regulation. And they wonder what the point of it all is. Put simply, many ask 'why can't we just have what we voted to join - a common market?'

The British people have decided to leave. It is a sad decision but one which I respect. The vote puts the European Union in difficulties. It must recognise its shortfalls.

If we get outside the EU, if we leave the EU system, we will be relieved of a huge amount of unnecessary regulation that is holding this country back. We will be able to set our own priorities, make our own laws and set our own tax policies to suit the needs of this country. We have a huge opportunity also to make people's votes count for more.

As politicians we have to react to the fact that many people do not feel that they can relate to the EU.

The decision of a majority of people in the United Kingdom to vote to leave the European Union is profoundly disappointing.

European citizens expect that there will be also a fair system inside the European Union and in the euro, and that's why we have to have quite hard discipline.

The EU must be able to act with the speed and flexibility of a network, not the cumbersome rigidity of a bloc. We must not be weighed down by an insistence on a one size fits all approach which implies that all countries want the same level of integration. The fact is that they don't and we shouldn't assert that they do.