The Mogcast, a fortnightly conversation with Jacob Rees-Mogg about the topics of the day.

Welcome to the 84th Mogcast.

This is Paul Goodman, editor of Conservative Home, in conversation

with Jacob Rees-Mogg. Jacob, good afternoon.

Good afternoon, thank you for coming around.

And this is our final discussion about Brexit, which obviously has been much in the news

and comment given the anniversary of leaving.

I thought I'd approach it in a somewhat unusual way by challenging some of the usual premises

of the discussion.

Because I think when Brexit is discussed and reviewed, some unconscious assumptions are sometimes made.

One of them is that the EU itself hasn't changed in the period between the referendum and today,

and that had we not decided to leave, we'd be with the EU as it was in 2016.

That's the first assumption.

I think the second assumption is that had the referendum swung in favour of Remain,

the whole business would somehow have been settled.

And we would continue along a happy path, so the remain diehards would argue within the EU.

And again, that's an assumption I want to discuss.

So let's go to the first think about the EU as it is now compared to the EU in 2016.

So a refrain of Eurosceptics and levers has always been,

the EU's goal is ever closer union, it's always moving towards ever closer union.

To what degree is that really true? What's the evidence for that claim having been affected

between 2016 and now?

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