In 1988, to mark the 900th anniversary of the founding of the University of Bologna, Europe’s oldest university, 388 rectors and heads of universities drew up the Magna Charta Universitatum. This was a brief general declaration of the nature of universities and their purpose.

The first principle was: “The university is an autonomous institution at the heart of societies differently organised because of geography and historical heritage”. The second fundamental principle was: “Freedom in research and training is the fundamental principle of university life, and governments and universities … must ensure respect for this fundamental requirement.”

The Bologna statement was an affirmation of an ideal transcending national frontiers. Its principles were reaffirmed in a 1999 document establishing the European Higher Education Area, signed by the education ministers of 29 European countries, including the UK.

Viewed from the everyday experience of a British university two decades later, these principles can ring hollow. “An autonomous institution”? Barely a month goes by without a new diktat issuing from Whitehall and its satellite agencies. Governance is as constrained as policy. One recognised expression of autonomy is for academic staff to have a say in who is appointed to the roles of deans, pro-vice-chancellors, and vice-chancellors. In British universities – unlike the majority of their European counterparts – that doesn’t happen.

Another institutional expression of autonomy would be a senate that had effective control of academic and intellectual policy, but that body has been bypassed or abolished in nearly all UK universities.

“Freedom in research”? Tell that to the colleague compelled by their research excellence framework manager to focus on a particular line of inquiry. Or tell it to the heads of department obliged to enforce the targets set by the pro-vice-chancellor (research) for the amount of money to be brought in by each member of staff through external grants. The mantras “accountability” and “performance management” mask the disturbing extent of institutional bullying in so many British universities.

It has long been recognised in most university systems that academic freedom and academic tenure are two faces of the same coin, with appropriate legal protections to match. In Britain, however, tenure was abolished by the Tories’ Education Act of 1988. But academics still have de facto tenure, don’t they? Tell that to those who are made redundant as a result of the latest piece of managerialist restructuring.

In Britain we are used to hearing a lot of sub-Burkean blather about how written constitutions are only needed by those countries that don’t have our practical wisdom and good judgment. But the truth is that genuine academic freedom in British universities is in a parlous condition. Not because uniformed commissars are frog-marching outspoken academics off to jail (not that there are that many outspoken academics in the first place). It is more a matter of the daily erosion of intellectual integrity, the relentless commodification of scholarly values, and the tightening grip of managerialist autocracy. And no one can seriously believe that any of this will be improved by leaving the EU and submitting to the unregulated embrace of global capitalism in its most buccaneering and profit-hungry form.

Anyone tempted to dismiss these points as the alarmism of disappointed idealists or other malcontents should read the sober and detailed survey of academic freedom across Europe by Terence Karran and Lucy Mallinson. When measured against a range of standard criteria, including legal safeguards and de facto practices, the UK came bottom of the 28 member states of the EU. Similarly, the definitive text book The Law of Higher Education declares that “in terms of the health of academic freedom, the UK is clearly ‘the sick man of Europe’”.

So they may soon have to rewrite the Magna Charta Universitatum. “The university is an autonomous institution (though not, in practice, in the UK …).” “Freedom in research and training is the fundamental principle of university life (though, funnily enough, not in the UK …).”