AT first reading, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney’s speech this week on the UK’s membership of the European Union looked a lot like a mighty cop-out.

It certainly had a far, far less forthright tone than Mr Carney’s interventions last year in the debate on Scottish independence.

The Bank Governor was viewed in some quarters as having played a key role in shaping opinion in last September’s independence referendum with his interventions regarding the issue of whether Scotland could keep the pound if its people chose to go it alone.

In January last year, Mr Carney declared that “a durable, successful currency union requires some ceding of national sovereignty”.

And, ramping things up on September 9 last year as the referendum loomed large and the outcome appeared too close to call, Mr Carney declared: “We take note of the positions of all the major Westminster parties to rule out a currency union between an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK. So … in that context a currency union is incompatible with sovereignty.”

You would be hard-pressed to argue that these statements were anything other than extremely forthright, and put Mr Carney right in the thick of the highly political independence debate. His interventions in the debate appeared to contrast with the normally more subtle tones emanating from the apolitical Bank of England.

And the directness of Mr Carney’s involvement in the Scottish independence debate is in stark contrast to his approach so far regarding the looming referendum on the UK’s continuing membership of the EU.

This is particularly worrying, given that any economic risks associated with Scottish independence would surely pale into insignificance relative to the grave dangers of the UK exiting the massive EU free trade zone. And, in this regard, those who supported the Scottish independence cause but recognise the likely dire consequences of an EU exit might feel justifiably annoyed at Mr Carney’s seemingly more relaxed stance on the in-out referendum that Prime Minister David Cameron has promised by 2017.

Mr Carney had on Tuesday, the day before his speech on the EU at Oxford University’s Sheldonian Theatre, told politicians it was likely to be a “yawner”. Surely not a good thing for a speech on such a crucial issue.

He started his speech in similar style.

Referring to a report on the EU issue published simultaneously by the Bank, Mr Carney told his audience: “I think I should be clear at the outset what this report and this speech is about, and what it is not. Our report…is solely concerned with how EU membership affects the Bank’s ability to achieve our core objectives of maintaining monetary and financial stability. It is not a comprehensive assessment of the pros and cons of the United Kingdom ‘being in Europe’.”

For good measure, and raising a laugh, he reiterated this message for the benefit of the press.

And Mr Carney invited members of his audience, “if the narrowness of my scope disappoints”, to “sit back” and admire the ceiling of the venue in which he was speaking.

There would not have been many bored people feeling the need to stare at ceilings when he was addressing the issue of Scottish independence at the Scottish Council for Development and Industry lunch in Edinburgh on January 29, 2014, or at the 146th annual Trades Union Congress in Liverpool on September 9 last year.

In light of all of this, it was utterly astounding to hear former Conservative Chancellor Lord Lawson, who is now leading a group opposed to EU membership, claiming yesterday that Mr Carney had weighed into the European debate “in a political way”. The reality of the situation seemed to be quite the opposite of that asserted by Lord Lawson.

Digging into the diplomatic detail of his speech this week, Mr Carney did highlight crucial economic advantages of UK membership of the EU in terms of dynamism and growth, inward investment, and free movement of labour. But these are obvious, factual, economic points, which did not appear to be made in any kind of political way whatsoever.

Mr Carney said: “For the majority of the period since the UK joined the EU ... greater openness and deeper integration ... very likely increased the dynamism of this economy. And I should be clear what I mean by dynamism. I mean, in effect, the ability of the economy to grow and progress.”

He noted that the UK had been the top destination within the EU for foreign direct investment, highlighting the importance of FDI to the economy.

Mr Carney added: “Evidence suggests that the openness of EU economies to foreign investment has improved firm-level productivity ... through technology transfer and enhanced management practices.”

He did flag downsides of EU membership but these seemed relatively inconsequential. For example, Mr Carney claimed, in what did not look like the most convincing argument, that the banking bonus cap was an impediment to controlling individuals’ behaviour in the financial sector in terms of how much remuneration could be clawed back.

It was something of a relief that Mr Carney did flag the indisputable benefits of EU membership, particularly with the opinion polls looking so close.

However, whatever Lord Lawson says, Mr Carney surely could and should be making far more of the grave risks of an EU exit.

These include the danger of a plunge in inward investment, given many of the companies from outwith the EU who set up shop in the UK do so to gain access to the free trade bloc, and a tumble in exports.

Mr Cameron may be rolling out the red carpet and pulling out all the stops this week for Chinese President Xi Jinping on everything from nuclear power deal announcements to fish and chips. However, with the referendum on EU membership, the Prime Minister is risking trade with the UK’s most important overseas markets.

We can only hope that the Bank of England Governor might be taking a long-term view, and will feel inclined to adopt a more forthright tone on the crucial issue of EU membership as Mr Cameron’s unnecessary but dangerously closely-balanced referendum draws closer.