Author and former MI6 spy Frederick Forsyth appeared on the BBC’s Any Questions panel a few weeks ago, but his comments were buried beneath Boaty McBoatface, tax returns and sex in high places. This is a pity (plus ça change), because the hidden agenda of the EU really isn’t that hidden any more, and the indifference of the people to the future of democracy is seemingly proportionate to the ignorance of the media commentariat, most of whom simply dismiss Freddie Forsyth as a ‘conspiracy theorist’ and peddler of myths.

When asked by Any Questions host Ritula Shah ‘Will the security risk increase for Great Britain?’, he doesn’t answer directly, but instead quotes Jean Monnet – Postmodern Pater Europae – who professedly wrote in 1952:

Europe’s nations should be guided towards the super state, without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose, but which will eventually and irreversibly lead to Federation.

Frederick Forsyth expounded:

You (may wonder) what swivel-eyed loon on the extreme right of the party gave vent to that? That was actually Jean Monnet.. the founder of the European Union, quite clearly militating for government by deception.. It is still the prime methodology of the EU; it is government by deception.

You are going to be persuaded, if possible, to believe what you are told and what you are told will be that it’s all about trade, which is what we thought it was when we entered the European Economic Community, known as the Common Market. We were not told what it would evolve into.

What is the EU? It is not about trade: we can have trade. It’s not about profits, or profitability or prosperity: we can have that to… we’ve traded for hundreds of years. It’s about two alternate governmental systems. We have a participatory parliamentary democracy in this country, that governs our country, we think. Across in Brussels, it’s not a parliamentary democracy; it’s very much a coercive bureaucracy; a committee that is the supreme power in the continent of Europe.

It’s about.. sovereignty..; the right of the British people to be governed by the people they wish, in the way they wish, which is being taken away from us. Part of that taking away is that we are no longer allowed.. to decline a career gangster.. from inside the EU.. If we had our sovereignty back.. we could say “No, you are not coming in”.. The Swiss can say it, but we can’t. The Swiss are not in the EU, but they trade vigorously with the EU: 80% of their exports go to the EU; 44% of ours.. But you are being persuaded with every bulletin that comes from David Cameron that it is about trade: it is a con.

All of which is undoubtedly true, except for one point of imaginative sympathy. Frederick Forsyth says that our sovereignty “is being taken away from us”. No, it really isn’t: our traditions of common law, ancient rights and jurisprudence have been given away incrementally by successive generations of our own elected leaders, with the full consent and authority of Parliament. Therein lies the real ‘conspiracy’, affirmed by our reason and experience, and the only remedy to restore truth, justice and freedom is to Vote Leave on 23rd June.