Paxman in Brussels: Who Really Rules Us?

-STALLHOLDER:

-Hello, dear, how are you this morning?

Everywhere you look, the European Union is telling us what to do.

Now, does this cucumber look

"reasonably shaped and practically straight?"

Because if it doesn't, it cannot comply

with EEC regulation 1677/88

and be a Class 1 cucumber.

And unless it was, "firm, free of abnormal external moisture

"and with soft seeds", it wouldn't be an EU-approved cucumber at all.

The notorious curved cucumbers rule has now been repealed,

along with the one about bendy bananas.

But all sorts of other fruit and vegetables

all still have to meet EU standards.

From bendy bananas to bright light bulbs,

muffling our vacuum cleaners

and regulating the power of our showers -

the EU is all around us.

It's that sort of pettifogging regulation which has turned

moaning about Brussels red tape into a national sport.

And let's face it, we're world-class at that.

But do these rules signify something bigger?

By being part of the EU, have we lost the right to rule ourselves?

And in today's world, might we even be better off if we have?

One lunchtime on a bitterly cold day in January 1649,

so cold the River Thames had frozen over,

the King of England was marched through this room

and out of one of these windows here, onto a platform in Whitehall.

There, he was to have his head cut off.

In order to put King Charles I on trial, Oliver Cromwell's Parliament

declared itself, not the King, the supreme authority in the land.

Right to the end, Charles tried to cling to power.

It was he who told the executioner to strike.

With one clean blow, his head was cut from his body.

From the crowd, there arose of what one eyewitness called,

"a dismal, universal groan."

The execution of a sovereign is the most dramatic example

in our history of the way in which sovereignty -

supreme authority - transferred from King to people.

That question of sovereignty is also the central political question

in our relationship with the European Union.

Has it gone from Britain to Brussels?

Of course, the world has changed quite a lot

in the last four centuries - there aren't many kings left to behead.

The claim of the EU is that sharing that cherished, traditional notion

of sovereignty leaves us all better off.

The question is, how that works in practice.

There's only one way to find out -

I'm off to the glorious city of Brussels.

Here in Belgium's capital, they love the idea of Europe.

So much so, they've built their very own,

EU-funded, miniature version.

We became part of all this 40 years ago.

But the organisation we joined was a very different beast

from the one we now find ourselves in.

Thanks to decades of treaty-making and endless bargaining,

the European Union of today is, well, pretty madly complicated.

Just the buildings are confusing, there are loads of them -

a Parliament, a Council, a Commission and a law court.

But if we are to find out where true power lies -

and that is rather the point of this programme -

I'm afraid we have to dive in.

Helpfully, perhaps, the EU's spent 21 million euros

on a visitor centre at the European Parliament.

-AUDIO GUIDE:

-Welcome to the European Parliament in Brussels,

the democratic centre of the European Project.

"National sovereignty is the root cause of the most crying evils

"of our time and the only final remedy

"is a federal union of the peoples."

"Lord Lothian."

Never heard of him.

'..today, London is also the site of the European Medicines Agency.'

"Move scanner over hot spot."

Where's the hot spot?

The Parlamentarium celebrates - if that's the right word -

the EU's achievements across Europe.

-CREW MEMBER:

-I think the idea is to push it round.

It's on wheels, see, you push it...

Oh, you move this thing around. This is the scanner, is it?

Right, let's see what they've got to say about Britain.

'Edinburgh in the United Kingdom.

'This is where storyteller JK Rowling

'wrote the first of the Harry Potter books.

'Harry Potter is one of Europe's best known and well loved stories,

'but there are so many others...

'..from the Danish fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen

'to the Italian story of Pinocchio.'

The European Parliament is claiming credit

for a great number of things, isn't it?

The easiest bit of the EU to get your head around is the Parliament.

'Work in the European Parliament

'is the epitome of the European Union's motto - United In Diversity.

'In fact, many of the laws that affect your daily life

'are decided on a European level.'

How does this work?

Every member country gets a number of MEPs that is roughly

proportional to its population and the general public votes for them.

The point about this is you're supposed to be able

to find your MEP here,

and...

..there is a mere 750 of them

and, you know, I am marginally interested in politics.

There are...

Well, there is not one I recognise, actually, here.

Who on earth are these people?

More importantly, what do they do all day?

I run, mostly. You can see how big this building is.

'Catherine Bearder is a Liberal Democrat MEP

'and also looks after what is said to be an art collection.'

And you've got something to do with all of this, haven't you?

Well, this is a temporary exhibition.

We were a bit worried when we put this up -

cos it's not far away from the cafe - that some of them might come

and put a cup of coffee on there, but so far, so good.

Catherine, what would make a perfectly sensible person

become an MEP?

I have been for years campaigning on environmental issues, on...

Well, why don't you go and do it somewhere useful

-like the British Parliament?

-Well, no, because this...

No, because the issues that I care about -

environment and human trafficking, can only be done internationally.

So you're going to have to sit down and work with other countries

and that is the perfect place to do it here.

We can affect legislation in 28 countries.

But let's be realistic, this is not a parliament as you and I,

and most British people understand a parliament, ie - sovereign.

It's not, is it?

It's not a government, no, but it is a parliament,

where we sit and we make legislation.

Where you sit and talk.

No, no, we amend legislation and we initiate.

The Commission is like the civil service.

The Council is where our ministers all sit.

And if we can't agree on legislation,

we have these wonderfully named things called trialogues,

where three of us - three parties - the Council, the Commission

and the Parliament, all sit together and we thrash it out

and the MEPs are absolutely essential to that process.

We represent the citizens.

In the Council, they represent the governments.

Well, that makes perfect sense - to those who work here.

Personally, I haven't had a decent trialogue in years.

But enough of that.

Here are the results of my homework on how it all works,

boiled down to a single example.

It's an issue that nearly split Europe -

chocolate.

It started with the European Commission,

which decided that we needed a better definition of chocolate.

It seems that what we had been calling chocolate all these years

wasn't really chocolate at all.

Oh, and UK milk chocolate was too milky.

The Commission's proposal went to Parliament and to the Council.

They had some amendments to suggest

and after those went back and forth,

both Parliament and the Council agreed the Chocolate Bill

and a new directive was issued.

That took four years.

Now, pay attention at the back.

Directives are one of two types of EU law.

A directive means that something HAS to be done.

The details are left to national governments.

A few years later, the EU changed its mind on chocolate,

and this time, they issued a different type of law -

a regulation.

Pencils at the ready.

Regulations, also agreed by the EU Commission, Council and Parliament,

but they become law automatically.

They appear as if by magic on the statute books of member states

without the elected representatives having to do anything.

So that's what the Parliament here does.

It amends and agrees legislation that applies across the EU.

We've got 73 MEPs here,

that's getting on for one for every million of us.

No wonder it can seem remote.

Jill Evans of Plaid Cymru represents an entire country.

Who are you accountable to?

Well, I'm accountable to the people of Wales, because they elect...

-What, all of them?

-They elect me every five years.

But I think what is different in the European Parliament,

is because there is no government and opposition parties as such,

then every MEP is equal.

On average, only one in three of us

can be bothered to vote for the EU Parliament.

Much of the rest of Europe shares that, er, enthusiasm.

Most people don't bother to vote for you

because they don't think this Parliament is important.

Now, of course, there is no Parliament that passes laws

with which everyone is happy,

but we have passed laws here that protect the environment,

that protect working people, that protect young people.

There's been so much achieved by the EU.

So perhaps it's a bit much for us to moan about the place

if we don't even make time to vote for it.

Anyway, you might struggle to recognise your MEP

but most, I hope, will recognise this chap.

The podium for those awkward so-called family photographs

is in yet another EU building,

the next stop on our magical mystery tour of Brussels.

It's where our Government ministers get together

with their opposite numbers from the other member states.

The one place everyone's told me

that national interests are specifically catered for

is in the Council in Brussels, where ministers

and heads of government meet to reach decisions and to approve laws.

So Britain's voice, they say, is heard in Brussels,

but that is not of course the same

as getting its own way.

So the UK is represented in the European Parliament

and by Government ministers in Council,

but so is every other country,

so what's left of British sovereignty?

It rather depends who you ask.

Dan Hannan is a Conservative MEP who thinks that the principle of

national sovereignty far outweighs the benefits of sharing it.

I sometimes wonder, listening to guys like you, whether you

aren't just seeing things as far, far worse than they really are.

After all, you know, nine out of ten times

when it comes to some contentious matter in the EU

we're on the winning side.

Well, we're on the losing side more than twice as much

as the next-most-defeated country out of the 28,

so we are more often outvoted than anybody else,

but actually, look, I'm a great optimist.

The reason that I think we should leave is because we're

a great country, we're the fifth-largest economy in the world.

How much bigger do we have to be

before we can flourish living under our own laws?

Specifically on the question of sovereignty,

how would life change for people in Britain?

Sovereignty means that we get to hire and fire

the people who pass our laws.

And at the moment we don't.

I mean, supreme power is held by Brussels

and is exercised by people that nobody votes for.

-So we would be able to make....

-That's simply not true, is it?

I mean, you get a European Council meeting,

there are British ministers there,

and if something they judge to be inimical to the British interest is on the table

they can vote against it.

They can vote against it, and they might win or they might lose,

but it's only on the basis of a Commission proposal

that they're allowed to deliberate at all.

Ah, the Commission.

Stop fidgeting, we're getting there.

The European Commission is the third of those EU bodies.

In the demonology of Euroscepticism,

that building is the seat of all evil.

For them, what is wrong with Brussels, or Europe generally,

is the way that decisions are taken inside that building,

decisions which affect all of our lives and yet which are made

by people who are unelected, hardly accountable,

remote...and foreign.

'Environment, working conditions...'

A former public-relations man, Jonathan Hill,

now Baron Hill of Oareford, is the current British Commissioner.

'You have to have a system here that can deliver a consensus,

'and a consensus that will stick.'

The European Commission has 28 members, one for each member state.

In most cases it's the only body that can propose EU laws.

MUSIC: Waterloo by ABBA

These commissioners haven't been elected to the job,

instead they're appointed by their national government.

From their number, one is chosen to be President.

Right now it's the former Prime Minister of the Duchy of Luxembourg,

total population smaller than that of Leeds - Jean-Claude Juncker.

It's a bit like the Eurovision Song Contest.

Other countries send their top-drawer acts.

The current Commission includes four former prime ministers

and four former deputy prime ministers. And us?

We've sent luminaries like Peter Mandelson, Chris Patten

and, er, Neil Kinnock.

Fun meeting? JONATHAN HILL CHUCKLES

Of course. Always.

What's it like to belong to an organisation

that's so reviled by so much of Britain? HILL CHUCKLES

Well, I... Do you mean being a member of the British Cabinet?

No, I mean...

-No, I mean being a member of the European Commission.

-Well...

But it is run by foreigners. HILL CHUCKLES

By definition it's run by foreigners.

The big difference here is that in our system in Britain

it is parties and governments that make decisions, propose laws.

In this case the only people who can propose laws are you.

And you're not elected.

That is how the system works, correct.

Have you ever been elected to anything?

Er, no, I have not been a lifelong politician.

-Not even a parish council?

-Absolutely not.

I've not been, er, a lifelong politician,

which you can argue has some, er, disadvantages,

you can argue also it has some advantages.

You are in the end a placeman, aren't you?

From the point of view that...yes.

-That's how the system works.

-You are David Cameron's creature here.

Well, if you want to, erm, describe me in that way, I...

The... I've already explained how it works.

You're able to take a view but you're then held to account

by the member states, by the European Parliament

and by going round and working with parliaments across Europe.

Many people feel that they have no control over this institution,

which is just obliging an elected government

to pass various regulations telling us how we should lead our lives.

Do you understand that anxiety?

I completely understand, erm, that there is that feeling. I think...

-It's true, it's not just a feeling.

-No, I think some of it's...

There are some elements where actually it isn't true

and that the understanding of how the system works, er, is slightly missing.

If you think about some of the things that we all think of as being emblematic of sovereignty -

taxation, foreign policy... defence policy -

er, those are not areas where the British Government can be dictated to.

I think of areas where I used to work -

education, our health service that people care about -

again, these aren't areas where the country is being steam-rollered.

'Well, I suppose all laws had to start somewhere.'

But what feels odd to us in the UK

is that here they begin with those we haven't elected.

But importantly for the sovereignty question

they're passed by people we HAVE elected,

though they have to travel to do it.

Once a month we go to Strasbourg,

er, and we have a trunk that goes with us.

What, the whole European Parliament?

The Parliament, the committees, Parliament staff.

-Er, I take one of my members of staff with me.

-Why?

-Oh, it's crazy.

It's crazy. It's in the treaties.

The EU treaties mean that

although the European Parliament is based in Brussels in Belgium

it has to vote 200 miles away in Strasbourg, France.

Parliament itself has voted on numerous occasions

to do away with going to Strasbourg

but it's in the treaties, so it needs a treaty change,

and we all know what treaty change means these days.

Another referendum. So... And we don't want those!

5,000 boxes, a convoy of lorries,

politicians, staff, the kitchen sink.

Everyone agrees it's stupid but no-one can do a damn thing about it.

MEPs travel from their constituencies

while the civil servants slum it on a specially chartered train

dubbed the Eurocrat Express.

So every month Members of the European Parliament,

their paperwork and about 3,000 civil servants

make a journey of almost four hours to Strasbourg.

The total cost of maintaining two bases

is estimated at well over £100 million a year.

Lucky old Strasbourg, where the Parliament votes.

It may look like a modern-day Colosseum

but the encounters here aren't exactly gladiatorial.

Today's hot ticket is the French Prime Minister

meeting the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz.

This is either where you see the EU members collaborating

to harness immense communal power...

..or traditional national sovereignty

disappearing before your very eyes.

This is what European Union legislation looks like.

MAN SPEAKS SPANISH

By the time it reaches this point, a planned law has gone through both

Council and Parliamentary committees in Brussels, not to mention

our MPs back at Westminster looking at drafts in a special committee.

I do, though, notice something rather curious down on the floor.

So where is the British voice in all of this?

The answer is, there isn't one,

or at least not only one,

because MPs don't sit according to nationality,

they sit according to political attitude.

There are nine blocs within the European Parliament

and UK Members of the European Parliament sit in eight of them.

So although we've voted for our MEPs to represent us

they're not doing it as the UK.

They're here as liberals, conservatives, socialists, whatever.

Richard Corbett is a veteran Labour MEP who really gets this place.

He's been in Brussels for two decades, including four years

as an adviser to the former Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy.

As you may recall,

Mr Van Rompuy was up against stiff competition for the plum job

of being very first President of the Council.

We, the British Government,

believe that Tony Blair would be an excellent candidate

and an excellent person to hold the job of President of the Council.

But Tony Blair was too strong meat for the EU

and Van Rompuy got the job instead.

Some typically vociferous MEPs weren't impressed.

-And I don't want to be rude...but...

-BARRACKING FROM FLOOR

..but, you know, really, you have the charisma of a damp rag

and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk.

-And the question that I want to ask...

-BARRACKING

The question that I want to ask,

that we're all going to ask, is who are you?

I have no doubt that it's your intention to be the quiet assassin

of European democracy and of the European nation states.

You appear to have...

That little episode didn't much help the cause of European integration.

Do you understand why

so many British people cordially dislike the European Union?

Yes, well, if you've been told by so much of the media

that it is a bit like the bubonic plague...

-Come on, let's not blame the media.

-Well, in part.

You get stories trying to make the EU look silly or sinister.

Silly - straight bananas and so on,

or sinister - it's a threat to our democracy.

But it wasn't made up. The straight banana story was true.

They may have repealed the legislation...

No, there was no legislation saying bananas should be straight.

What about cucumbers? Was that made up too?

What they did was take wholesalers' arrangements

on classifying things to be low quality, medium quality,

high quality, which included a bit about curvature of bananas,

rules which the Union recognised,

but there's no legislation saying bananas have to be straight.

Well, why was the rule repealed, then?

Because even that was found to be not necessary

and if you don't need legislation, you should repeal it.

The specific question of how you can change those people who make

the laws, that tell you what to do,

that sovereignty has been ceded elsewhere.

No, it has been shared.

It makes sense to have common rules for the common market

on consumer protection with goods flowing back and forth,

on environmental standards and competition law and so on.

We make rules jointly.

There wasn't a word about bananas

when we first applied to join the EEC.

But in the years since, more and more laws made here

have come to Britain. How many?

It would be nice to know.

This chap thinks he knows.

Look, you'll hear from Nigel Farage, oh, 75% of our laws.

No, actually, the House of Commons has shown that

roughly 7% of all new laws are related to the European Union.

-Oh, dear, oh, dear.

-And so does this one.

We had one of your friends from Brussels,

Commissioner Viviane Reding, in London the other week saying

we must all sign up to the United States of Europe

and we must recognise the importance of Brussels

because after all it makes 70% of our laws.

Even Gordon Brown said over half our laws are made in Brussels.

So, what is the number really?

It depends what you count.

Is it just directives in which the European Union tells

Parliament what it needs to do

or do you include regulations?

Is it one or both?

The House of Commons Library tried to tot up

the numbers in various combinations,

coming up with an estimate between 15% and 55%.

But when they looked at figures for 2010 to 2013,

the most recent available at the time,

they calculated a whopping 59%.

There is a catch, inevitably.

We get all the regulations but some of them, like the production

of olive oil or growing tobacco, clearly don't apply to us,

so the figure of 59% may be a gross exaggeration.

All researchers conclude is that it is impossible to get

an accurate measurement, which for some people tells you all

you need to know about our relationship with the EU.

I vote against any legislation which transfers power from our

great country into the hands of the Eurocrats,

into the hands of Brussels, and I think that is the most

valuable thing that any British MEP can do.

The largest group of UK MEPs in Brussels belongs to a party

that wants us out - Ukip. Paul Nuttall is one of them.

Your party has the most appalling record even for turning up.

Well, in terms of turning up for committees and whatnot,

in the last Parliament I admit our record was poor.

But let's not forget, we came out here with a mandate to spend most

-of our time in the UK campaigning to leave the European Union.

-No...

Hold on, Jeremy, in this Parliament, things are different.

And why do they want us out?

They are obsessed with traditional sovereignty.

If you think of the British system,

you have the members of the House of Commons who propose

the legislation, it then goes up to an unelected chamber,

the House of Lords, to be amended and pushed through.

Over here, it's completely the opposite position.

It's the unelected who propose the legislation

and it's handed down to us simply to amend.

So you feel it's undemocratic.

I think it's un-British and undemocratic, yeah.

# Coucou, les rosiers fleurissent

# Coucou, les rameaux verdissent

# Coucou, voici le printemps... #

It is different...

On the other side, the vast majority of MEPs who think that

working together is just obviously more important than our

little-islander sense of Britishness.

So, the question was that the British are frustrated by these laws

coming from the European Union.

But why don't you look at it in another way?

That you have actually the power to

influence the laws for 507 million people.

If you go, then you can't. You can't influence those processes any more.

So it is more that you have more power over European processes

while you are in. When you're out, then OK.

So we should just stop moaning and think of the benefits.

This happens in all the families.

You always have somebody who is always moaning, always being,

you know, being nit-picking and you have to give a lesson.

And the lesson is, "OK, do you want to be part of this family?

"You have your role, we have a common obligation,

"several duties together, and this is the way we work.

"But we really want you to be in the family

"because what will you be doing outside the family?"

'Thanks, Mum!

'So, does Europe want to put us on the naughty step?'

# Cadilla

# Cadilla

# Coucou, bonjour mon amour... #

The idea that Britain does things differently to the rest

of the European Union is one that comes up time and again.

But we have to accept that there are some people who see

doing things differently as just being a bloody nuisance.

Dominique Riquet is a veteran French MEP.

Do you think that Britain is a serious European nation?

IN FRENCH:

It's a different idea of Europe, that's all.

And if Britain decides to leave the European Union, that's it.

C'est fini.

For the most fervent Europhiles, the dream is a single country

under a single government with a single flag.

The UK has never been keen on that and in his recent negotiations,

David Cameron won a formal acknowledgement that...

Britain will be permanently out of ever-closer union,

never part of a European superstate.

But it's not just dreamy old men who want to see

a more integrated Europe.

Down the grapevine,

the young European federalists are rather more...energised.

We are much stronger on the world scene

by being one strong united power

than being 28 single little countries.

Will it happen in your lifetime, do you think?

I really hope it will.

I mean, I really hope it will happen in ten years, even sooner,

because we realise, and we have to realise, it's the way to go for us.

Because staying like this now, with a superpower like Russia, China,

like the US, like all the superpowers that are growing,

we have no chance.

We are Europe and we are together and we need to stay together.

You almost sound as if you're scared we won't stay together.

No, I'm not scared about it

because I'm sure we will stay together.

I'm just scared about what you may decide.

Are you really concerned about it?

I am a bit because there are forces in the UK

that are advocating for an outcome that I do not agree with.

Who is this clown?!

Captain Europe, at your service.

The obvious thing would be to say "dunna-dunna-Paxman",

or something like that.

-Very nice to meet you.

-Well, it's a very nice outfit.

Well, thank you.

No, actually, it's a ridiculous outfit.

But it gets people talking.

Talking about what a ridiculous outfit it is!

He is actually our hero.

So, is a unified Europe what lies at the end of the road

for EU members who don't get out now?

It's certainly what Mrs Thatcher thought in 1988 when she gave

a speech in Bruges that has become

the rallying cry of UK Euro-sceptics.

We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state

in Britain only to see them reimposed at a European level with

a European superstate exercising a new dominance from Brussels.

From regulating cucumbers to a European superstate -

that is some slippery slope.

But could it really happen?

Well, maybe yes, maybe no.

There's another catchy bit of Euro-jargon called "subsidiarity".

It's means that decisions should be taken as close

to grassroots as possible.

Brussels steps in for the bits where working together

is better for everyone.

Some are pretty sceptical.

EU was a peace project, that was the intention of it,

and then it turned out into something completely different.

Peter Lundgren is a Sweden Democrat.

Here, his party shares a platform with Ukip.

We didn't vote for the kind of EU we see today.

We didn't vote for EU taking our sovereignty from us.

We didn't vote for EU to be the bosses of our countries.

These allies hope Britain would be followed through the exit by others.

That will pretty much be like the Berlin Wall.

It will have a crack in the wall and it will start to fall down

and we are really hoping and supporting England in the no-side.

# We're all going on a summer holiday... #

But how to British voters think?

The European Parliament isn't many people's

idea of the holiday of a lifetime.

But two busloads of English constituents

have come on a rather unusual mini-break.

So this is your idea of fun?

-No.

-I'm here for work, why are you here?

To find out more and there are other things...

-You're very conscientious, then, aren't you?

-Absolutely, yes.

What else is involved in this trip?

We visited Champagne area yesterday and we're going to...

-So it's not all bad.

-It's not all bad.

Will it help them make their minds up before the referendum next month?

Or are their minds pretty well made up already?

I've had an open mind for years

but having listened, I think the argument is for out.

One argument I've got that no-one has ever been able to answer for me

is why has every party political leader and Prime Minister

been in favour of staying in?

Surely they of all people know the balance

between the freedoms we give away and the powers we gain.

This eventually will be

the parliament for the United States of Europe.

We want to be British.

So we leave these lucky folk

to their immersion in the glories of the European Union.

For us, it's time to depart the land of champagne and foie gras

and head back to the nation that gave the world the Eccles cake,

because in the end, we will decide

not by what we can do for the EU

but by what the EU has done for us.

Of course, being in the EU, being in and proud,

brings many benefits.

But no benefits come for free.

So what are we to make of this trade-off?

Old-school sovereignty for brave new world collaboration.

Hello, would you like a leaflet on the European Union?

Why we ought to leave?

There are 35 days till the referendum.

Businessman John Mills wants us to vote Leave.

But this isn't the first time our membership of Europe has been

put directly to the British public.

I'm a certain age and I don't remember when we joined Europe

that they were going to tell us that they could overrule our parliament.

I don't agree with that.

Ted Heath's government took us into what was then

the European Economic Community on New Year's Day 1973.

# For auld lang syne... #

But when Labour took power soon after,

they called a referendum on whether we should stay or go.

And the national agent of the 1975 No campaign,

one...John Mills.

I think we were sold the membership of the Common Market,

as it was then, very much on economic terms

as a trading relationship and not as one that was going to lead to a kind

of United States of Europe,

which I think is where we're heading to.

People were effectively lied to.

I think one of the really salient points

about the referendum last time round

was that the British public was misled -

not just by Harold Wilson, but by Edward Heath

and by a lot of other politicians

who knew perfectly well the direction of travel

and weren't prepared to tell everybody about them.

His job was getting out the vote against the other side,

including the newly elected Conservative leader

Margaret Thatcher...

In a rather lovely jumper.

It's very fitting that you should keep an all-night vigil

under the statue of Sir Winston Churchill,

the first person to have the great vision

of working together for peace in Europe.

I never managed to lay my hands on this glorious garment,

but in 1975, like Margaret Thatcher,

I voted to stay in the European Community.

It seemed forward-looking, it seemed almost visionary.

Was national sovereignty an issue? Not in the slightest.

When Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister,

she set her sights on what was dubbed "Maggie's money" -

a rebate on Britain's contribution to the EU budget.

Then Jacques Delors took power in Europe

as President of the European Commission.

He unveiled his plans

for a single market, a single currency

and a federalist direction for Europe.

To some in Britain, he seemed to be trying to finish the work

of that other Gallic short-arse, Napoleon.

-ALL:

-Up yours, Delors!

# The liquidator

# Will soon be coming around

# You won't feel safer... #

And one person in particular was distinctly unimpressed.

The President of the Commission, Mr Delors,

said at press conference the other day

that he wanted the European Parliament to

be the democratic body of the Community,

he wanted the Commission to be the Executive

and he wanted the Council of Ministers to be the senate.

No, no, no.

Thatcher's end swiftly followed.

Her successor, John Major,

starred in the final act of this tragicomic drama,

the Maastricht Treaty.

It was key to the creation of the single market

and the common currency, the euro.

Its official title was the Treaty on European Union.

Top reporters were dispatched from across the continent.

This was 24 years ago, remember.

Good evening from Maastricht.

There seems every prospect that within a very short time,

probably a couple of hours or so,

a treaty on European union will be agreed.

Bill Cash was the ringleader of the so-called "Maastricht rebels",

John Major's bastards, who tried to stop the UK signing up.

It was the first major step towards political union

so it had to be resisted.

What was it about Maastricht that made it such a big deal for you?

All the European stuff before that, from 1972,

was about trading and that sort of thing.

European government was created by Maastricht,

that's what it was all about,

because it actually affected who governs and how.

But as long as we're in it, we are not governing ourselves.

No, and that's because you obey all the obligations

which come from the European Union

and you obey all the judgments of the European Court of Justice.

So do try to keep up, because here we go again...

The Court of Justice of the European Union

is the fourth institution.

It's the Union's supreme legal arbiter,

where judges from each member state make sure we all toe the same line.

The court prevails over any national court decision

and it prevails over any national law within

the areas in which the European Union is competent.

'Sir Francis Jacobs was Advocate General at the European Court

'for nearly 20 years.'

In those areas in which the European Court has competence,

it takes precedence over anything else?

Yes, that is right.

If you are going to have a European Union,

it has to have a body of law.

That is what is essential,

particularly for the internal market to function at all.

Even if the United Kingdom were to leave the European Union

and wanted to retain access to the internal market,

it would entail accepting the rules of the internal market

but with no say in the making of those rules

and with no say in the way in which

the Court of Justice interprets them.

Would you accept that the very existence of the European Court

has necessarily meant that sovereignty in individual states

has been reduced?

That's right - this is not a thing unique to the European Union.

The notion that the sovereignty of the state

is limited by international law

is something which is familiar now for 100 years.

When you hear it put as unambiguously as that,

that national sovereignty has been curtailed,

it raises two immediate questions.

One - what have we got in return?

And two - is the whole traditional idea of sovereignty dead?

It's a pretty distant worry in some parts of Europe -

for example, to British expats living out

the benefits of shared sovereignty in sunny Spain.

Today, they're getting a wake-up call

that's got nothing to do with the looming possibility

of Britain leaving the EU.

It's the Costa Blanca's annual fire festival.

Local people celebrate by building giant street sculptures.

But the British have brought

their own, more sedate, traditions with them.

It is fabulous for us here. I've had a great time.

I thoroughly enjoy my lifestyle here.

It's much, much better.

The El Cid bowls club - that's Sid with a C -

is just outside Javea, a seaside resort

where around 50% of the population is foreign,

and nearly half of those are British.

-Does everyone have their own set of balls?

-Yes, yes, we do.

-Woods.

-Woods?

This is your bias side, which is where the bowl will turn.

-Oh, I know all about the bias side!

-It's the weighted side.

'Their lifestyle here is made possible

'by Britain's membership of the EU.'

You guys have been beneficiaries, haven't you?

You live here in a much better climate,

you've got reciprocal health care, which many people say is better

than they can get in the UK.

It's laid-back. The cost of living is far better.

I couldn't afford to go back and live in the UK

and I think that's the bottom line.

You're economic migrants, aren't you?

-Sort of, yeah, for sure!

-Yeah, yeah.

'But there's always someone who wants to be difficult.'

When it comes to a decision,

it's made by a set of people that haven't been elected.

This is really weird, isn't it?

Here you are, living in a fellow member state of the European Union,

saying you can't stand it because the way decisions are taken,

people are unaccountable.

80 new laws are passed every week.

80 - and we have to suffer all them.

How are you suffering?

Because they...they change all the rules, the laws,

and you've because the laws are changing, you've got to...

You can't do nothing without the law.

You're not even living in England.

I know, but I do go back and have a look around.

Jack's views may be unusual at El Cid

but he's typical of his age group in the UK.

Polls suggest dislike of the EU is strongest among older people.

But it's the reverse among the young.

So I was expecting positive noises

when I met three British students studying here

on the EU-funded Erasmus scheme.

For them, the liberty to choose our rulers

that old codgers bang on about

doesn't mean much compared to other liberties.

We may have laws that are imposed upon us,

but we also have the freedom

to move around within the EU much more freely.

If we were outside of the EU,

it would definitely limit our own personal sovereignties.

When you hear people talking about sovereignty,

the United Kingdom, having struggled for 1,000 years

to assert its right to make its own laws

and now being unable to change laws

that are imposed by Europe...

I hate that kind of view of feeling like I have certain rights

because I'm British, or we've done so much

to gain everything that we have.

Monica, what do you think? Do you think this is a generational thing?

I personally just don't feel

as though our generation are quite nationalistic and patriotic.

People tend to see themselves as not citizens of the UK,

not citizens of the EU, but citizens of the world.

This is generation EU.

They were born post-Maastricht.

For them, the presence and dominance of the European Union

is simply a fact of life, and a good one at that.

This is about the future, including those still too young to vote.

The motion we have in front of us today is that this house believes

that individual nation states cannot be sovereign countries

within the European Union.

These alarmingly articulate London sixth formers

are having a formal debate.

MEPs are largely unaccountable to the general public.

The opacity and the bureaucracy of the EU

at the very least stifles democratic processes,

if not limiting them altogether.

The real power is monopolised in the hands of the states

with the most representatives, especially the French-German axis.

The structure of the EU has changed massively.

We don't believe that it's OK for a country to forfeit

in the short term their national sovereignty,

and for that national sovereignty to be further butchered over time.

APPLAUSE

I now call on the first speaker of the opposition to respond.

They put points across better than some politicians I could mention.

EU membership is simply an adjustment

to the globalised world in which we live.

It is a form of representative democracy

which EU member states actively participate in.

Though our sovereignty can't be absolute,

it's also clear that whilst the EU does create legislation,

they do so with us at the helm.

And finally, by leaving, we risk our sovereignty

both on a personal and national level.

Thank you very much.

APPLAUSE

Well, that was exciting, wasn't it?

And now those in favour of the opposition?

And then a rather unexpected result.

We are in favour of the motion.

It's not where polls predict young sympathies lie,

but in this debate, oratory has won the day.

The final decision is in our hands,

All the politicians can do is make the case to get out or stay in.

When the Justice Secretary, Michael Gove, signed up to leave,

he put traditional sovereignty front and centre.

Ultimately what sovereignty comes down to

is the ability to go to any politician, "You're fired,"

and we don't have that in the European Union.

But that can happen with any one of the member governments of the EU.

You can change the people but the laws won't change.

Policies which are decided at the Brussels level

determine what happens in this country.

Just last week, there were two circulars that passed my desk.

One of them was about the regulation of blowtorches.

The European Union were deciding which blowtorches we could use

when we were baking creme brulees.

Oven gloves in future

are going to be governed by European Union regulation.

It interferes in everything from blowtorches and bananas

to the billions of pounds that we spend on new schools and hospitals.

The European Union has an influence and control in all of these areas.

But all these arrangements, the initial decision to go in,

Maastricht, the Single European Act that Mrs Thatcher signed,

all these decisions were taken by Conservative Prime Ministers.

Your party.

Er, yes, and now is the time to apologise

and to say I'm afraid we got it wrong.

There are 73 British European Members of Parliament,

there is a British person at the Commission,

there is the Council of Ministers - there is a voice there.

Yes, there is a voice, but it's continually outvoted,

muffled, or overruled.

So yes, we're at the table,

but like children at the adults' dinner table,

we're tolerated but ignored.

You would rather leave the table,

cease taking part in those discussions

and stand outside and shout in the wind, would you?

I wouldn't believe that we'd be shouting in the wind.

I think if we leave, we can take back control,

and there are certain key benefits, not just £350 million a week

which we can spend on our priorities,

but the chance to create a better way of operating in this country,

a more democratic way.

This is complete fantasy.

You people have failed to demonstrate

what this country would be like after leaving.

-You don't know.

-I do.

-Oh, you do, do you?

Yes, I do, because Britain has been a sovereign independent nation

in the past and we can be again.

You don't need to take it from me - the Prime Minister himself

has said that of course we could survive and prosper outside the EU.

To the Leave campaign,

reclaiming our sovereignty is a big reason to quit.

But for the Remain campaign,

the whole point is that what they call "sharing" leaves us better off.

There's one man in British politics

who's forever happy to stand up for the European Union -

former Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg.

Asked a straight question -

has national sovereignty been restricted?

Yes or no? What do you say?

I think it's been extended.

-So the answer is yes or no?

-It's been extended.

So it hasn't been restricted, it's been extended.

So the answer is no, you say there's been no curtailment.

So there's a trade-off. There's a trade-off,

you've got to be open about this, you've got...

You're not sovereign if you're dependent upon the agreement of 27 other states.

Yeah, so your understanding, or at least your apparent understanding,

of sovereignty is that it's a sort of block of concrete

and you chip away at it - it isn't.

It's something you share with others

to do things that you can't do on your own.

We made this argument, of course,

around Scotland and the United Kingdom.

Everybody said at the time that we were stronger

by doing stuff together.

We were more sovereign, stronger,

we were able to control our fate more fully by doing things together.

That you might have the impression of greater sovereignty through

splendid isolation, but actually what you do

is you are weaker and less able to control the circumstances

which affect your everyday life.

It does make you wonder what on earth

we have that building behind you for.

To hold British governments to account,

to form British governments.

British governments can be outvoted within the European Union.

I wish Brexiteers were more honest.

If they really don't like the idea

of Britain ever jointly taking decisions with others

and ever remotely entertaining the possibility that others

might outvote us, then I really think we should get out of the WTO,

get out of the United Nations, get out of NATO - it's absurd.

Even if means that we may have to go along with a policy

we don't agree with?

If you want to give British exporters and British manufacturers

the ability to freely trade across the European continent,

you've got to get beyond this idea that any Tom, Dick or Harry

can stop even the most minuscule decisions.

I think that was the right thing to do.

It was the greatest act of pooling sovereignty

ever undertaken by any British government.

I think Margaret Thatcher was right

and I think that principle - that by pooling things together,

we get a whole bunch of things we can't do on our own -

was right back in the 1990s and it's correct now in 2016.

I hadn't realised you were such a fan of Margaret Thatcher.

I think on the Single European Act, she was dead right.

-She regretted it.

-She regretted it.

-She said she'd been betrayed.

-Absolute nonsense.

She knew exactly what she was signing up to.

So should we stay in or get out?

Our European friends say they don't want us to go.

We really want you to be in the family,

because what will you be doing outside the family?

Yet the biggest party we send to the European Parliament

doesn't even believe in the EU.

I think it's un-British and undemocratic.

There is simply no question about it.

The traditional idea of national sovereignty has been lost.

The court prevails over any national court decision.

But there is an argument that the notion of sharing sovereignty

is essential in the modern world.

We are much stronger on the world scene

by being one strong, united power

than being 28 single little countries.

National sovereignty hasn't been killed with a single blow,

like the execution of a king.

It has slipped away quietly but inexorably

over the four decades since we joined.

But have we traded it for other gains in this changed world?

In the end, a complicated relationship

is going to come down to a very simple decision -

do we stay or do we go?

Everything - the economy, immigration,

curvy cucumbers, oven gloves -

everything comes back to sovereignty.

Who takes those decisions?

No question that British national sovereignty has been lost.

The question for us is, has it been worth it?

If you'd like to know more about the possible implications

of a Leave or Remain vote in the referendum,

the Open University has been looking at some of the implications

for sovereignty and for the economy.

Go to...

..and follow the links for the Open University.