Professor  Frank Furedi's plenary lecture at last month's Institute of Ideas Academy.

From its inception, the project of European Unification associated the problem of nationalism, military conflict and totalitarianism with the unstable character of mass politics. Consequently the worthy objective of economic unity and continent wide co-operation and co-ordination was depoliticised and recast instrumentally as matters for technocrats and experts. The launching of the EU consolidated this process and, with the acquiescence of national governments, helped encourage the technocratic turn of public life. This session discusses the uneasy relationship of the project with no name with democracy and provides a background to Brexit.