David Owen

The vision of a European Common Market was a good one when in 1962 membership was first envisaged for the UK. Nevertheless, we were rightly warned even then by the leader of the Labour Party, Hugh Gaitskell, that a federal Europe lurked in the background. As far back as 1971 Edward Heath’s White Paper on entry misleadingly promised ‘no erosion of essential sovereignty’. That was untrue then and is much more so today. European law does override British law and David Cameron has failed to achieve any Treaty amendment to change this. What we have contrived in the EU is the pretension that you can be partly a country and partly not a country.

Britain out of Brussels' clutches by 2020? It can happen, says David Owen, in a piece for the magazine this week. It's based on a speech to Peterhouse College, Cambridge. Here's the full version: In all the controversy about the eurozone and Greece it is easy to ignore one simple fact: maintaining a core eurozone is creating an unstoppable momentum towards a United States of Europe. On 7 February 2012 the German Chancellor Angela Merkel indicated very clearly her direction of travel. The eurozone crisis for her is to be the springboard to another Treaty to replace the Lisbon Treaty. She said ‘Step-by-step, European politics is merging with domestic politics.