Imagine you are head of a country that has seen its GDP shrink 21% since 2010. You have 20%+ unemployment which, for the young, goes up to 50%+. You are expected to deliver a 4%+ contraction in GDP this year, partly due to the $90 billion of nonperforming loans in your economy.

There are runs on your banks, and your stock market has fallen 80% since 2008. Meanwhile, your debt is at 320 billion Euros and your creditors are demanding austerity cuts of around 20%, more than any country has ever delivered in recent times.

You’d think that Greece would be on the floor begging, not staring down and defeating in negotiations the combined might of the IMF, Germany, the European Commission, and European Central Bank.

Instead of weakness, Greece’s politicians have displayed resolution and strength. Against this, Europe has chosen, time and time again, to grant more and more concessions to Greece. The EU has given extra time for reforms and renegotiated previously-agreed bailout packages in a desperate attempt by Eurocrats who can’t bear to see their project sink to save their dream.

Irrespective of the cost and consequences (which will be borne by ordinary people in the Member States of the EU, not by the unelected Euro-elite), and despite this having been predicted by a host of economists since the Euro was launched, Europe is desperate to avoid Greece – the home of democracy – leaving the EU.

Greek weak; Britain blooming

Now consider Britain. With a strong, majority Conservative government, an economy that is growing, mild austerity/living-within-our-means budgets, the globally powerful City of London, oil resources, world-class science and research industries, and educational institutions that are famous the world over, you’d have to conclude that Britain is in an extremely strong position.

Without Britain’s armed forces, Europe would be – with the exception of France – almost entirely dependent on the United States. Without Britain’s EU budgetary contributions, the EU would be missing 17 billion Euros (2014) and its second biggest net contributor (Britain puts in 10.8 billion more than it takes out, 2014). And Britain’s economy has been outperforming the Eurozone even since the days when Gordon Brown was Chancellor!

Without Britain’s global presence, the EU would lose much of its international influence and intelligence capabilities. Without Britain’s market-focused influence, the EU would be even more bureaucratic, socialist and declining than it currently is.

In other words, Britain, unlike Greece, is in a position of towering strength. And if the shipwreck that is Greece can get the world’s most powerful institutions to continually make concessions, then David Cameron has utterly no excuse for not effecting great reform and change that will return power to the UK and ensure that Westminster remains the beating heart of Britain’s future.

There is no excuse. We all know, thanks to Juncker spilling the beans on the secret Chequers meeting, that Cameron wants Britain in the EU. But if he does not take this opportunity seriously, he will be betraying his country and wasting a moment in history when Britain can genuinely hold Europe to ransom.

Of course they will say ‘no’. But faced with the real possibility of Britain walking away, we know – as with Greece – they will bend over backwards to accommodate change.

Hope, destiny and the historic British fight for liberty are in Cameron’s hands. He had better not waste his chance.