FORGIVE me for writing an EU focused and slightly technical column this week, but as I start to campaign harder for Britain to remain in the EU I am hearing a lot about restoring sovereignty from the 'out' campaign. At first blush I can see why this sounds persuasive – of course we want control over own affairs – but as I dig more into the detail I have realised that the arguments being made do not stack up.

At its most basic level, sovereignty is the legal status that all states possess when they are recognised by their peers as having jurisdiction over a territory and its people. The governments of sovereign states have the legitimate right to maintain security within their territories; to enter into agreements with other states in the conduct of their international relations and to write the laws by which their countries are governed.

A sovereign state can be destabilised or invaded if it does not possess sufficient military strength or alliances and that is why Britain has chosen to join the NATO alliance, whose members pledge to support each other’s security; and to sign up to treaties, such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, that govern territorial rights and create mechanisms to settle disputes. We have chosen to limit our sovereignty in a literal sense in order to improve security and thereby protect our sovereignty in a practical sense.

And of course we trade “sovereignty” for economic reasons too – as a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), we forgo the sovereign right to impose tariffs on imports, while as a member of the World Health Organisation we have agreed to implement the International Health Regulations.

In fact, Britain has signed up to more than 700 such arrangements, which impede our absolute sovereignty, but deliver many benefits in return. But despite these deals and arrangements, our British government makes the vast majority of decisions over every issue of concern to the people this country; including health, education, pensions, welfare, monetary policy, defence and border security, and the government has absolute control over more than 98 per cent of public expenditure.

So, why would we take a decision to isolate ourselves from our European neighbours, damage our country’s prosperity in the short and long term and hurt our security and intelligence efforts to chase this largely illusory vision of a sovereign nation? It just doesn’t make sense, which is why I will be campaigning so hard for the people of Britain to make the right decision on June 23.