I actually worked for the man who was sent by Margaret Thatcher, would you believe it, to bat for Britain in Brussels. What I learned when I was there was this: the European Union is not perfect - of course not. This is a club that took 15 years to define "chocolate" in a chocolate directive. Anything that takes 15 years to define chocolate is not a model of democratic efficiency. What I also learned was this, that there are a whole load of things, whether we like it or not, whatever your views on Europe and the european Union, which we simply can't do on our own. We can't deal with international crime that touches and affects every single community in this country on our own. We can't deal with climate change on our own. The weather doesn't stop at the cliffs of Dover. We can't regulate these wretched banks that got us into so much in the first place which now sprawl across countries. I don't think the European Union is perfect. I want it reformed, that's why I want to lead in the European Union. But we're stronger together and we're weaker apart.

David Cameron talks about a guarantee. It was the Conservative Party that gave a cast iron guarantee to have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty which it promptly dropped. Look, we do need to have a referendum the next time there's a big transfer of powers to the European Union but it needs to be on the fundamental issue: do we stay in or do we go out? You have a right to make that choice in a referendum. I would argue we should stay in, not because it's perfect but because it's in our interests to do so. Let me give you, Christopher, a very concrete example. There was some time ago an operation by European police authorities which broke open a paedophile ring. They arrested 100 sex offenders, many of them in this country. And they released 20 young women from unimaginable abuse and servitude. something called Operation Koala. ou can Google it and look it up. Guess what? Conservative MEPs, UK Independence Party MEPs voted against the measures which made that possible. That is putting dogma above the safety of children. We are safer together, we're weaker apart.