Welcome to In Conversation, the regular podcast of Esharp magazine. Go to Esharp.E.shap.

For free access to all our podcasts today. This is Paul Adamson. I'm in conversation with Professor Anand Menon.

Anna Menon is director of the UK and the changing Europe project based at King's College London.

Anand I'd like this to be on the broad theme of what does the UK ever done to the European Union?

The first of a series of podcast I'd like to do with experts and personalities and you're certainly an expert and you've now become a personality.

Obviously we can't cover everything in the time allotted to us but let's try and make a personalities and you're certainly an expert and you've now become a personality. Obviously

we can't cover everything in the time allotted to us but let's try and make a stab at

least in three broad areas and you give me your views about whether the claims for

against Britain's contributions to the European Union in these areas that we are exaggerated or

totally accurate. So we're going to try and cover the single

market, enlargement and broadly speaking foreign policies. So single market, a lot of

people say that is really a UK invention or UK creation, certainly, ironically a UK

Conservative Party creation. To what extent is that, does that stand up to reality?

To some extent I'd say, firstly, thanks for having me on, Paul.

Remember that one of the curious things about the single market was that the undertaking

managed to unite three unlikely bedfellers in Francois-Mitton, Helmut Cole and Margaret Thatcher.

And you needed that impulsion from the big member states

who shared a common assessment of the fact that Europe was losing out in a global economic

battle to the giant, to Japan, pardon me, and to the United States. I suppose the argument about

how influential the Brits were comes after the project was launched.

That is to say, I lost count of the number of French people in the 1990s

who would say to me, sort of appalled that the Brits had created a Yorobonglosexon

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