The EU is a political project founded by a former communist, Iain Duncan Smith says

The Work and Pensions Secretary is fighting for Brexit

Iain Duncan Smith said the EU was explicitly federalist (BBC)

The European Union is an explicit political project designed by a former communist, Iain Duncan Smith has said.

The Work and Pensions Secretary, a eurosceptic, said it was important for the British public to realise that the EU was not about trade – but political integration.

He highlighted the contribution of Altiero Spinelli, a political theorist and former European Commissioner, to the founding to the EU.

“It’s worth knowing something here that the public needs to understand … the European Union is not about the trade issue,” Mr Duncan Smith told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show.

“The EU was set up by the founding fathers, an important man called [Altiero] Spinelli, an Italian, who was an ex-communist, he designed the Maastricht Treaty and the Single European Act, why?

“He said because this is a political project, bringing the nations of Europe closer and closer together to create a place called Europe and the design of this was such that politicians who come and go could not actually override this decisions of the bureaucracy because otherwise we would never get there.”

The late Mr Spinelli is one of 11 officially recognised founding fathers of the European Union; other include former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who called for the creation of a United States of Europe.

The Italian politician joined the Italian Communist Party in the 1920s to fight Benito Mussolini’s fascist dictatorship, which ruled Italy at the time.

He spent over a decade as a political prisoner and went on to become one of the leading lights of European Federalism.

Mr Spinelli died in 1986, seven years before the actual creation of the European Union. A version of a plan he proposed for European integration was backed by the European Parliament in 1984 and is regarded by the EU as "inspiration" for the treaties.

Mr Duncan Smith, who is campaigning to leave the European Union, insisted Britain would be able to secure full access to the single market and border controls outside the European Union.

He accused David Cameron and George Osborne of having a “low opinion of the British people” because of their pronouncements about what would happen if Britain left the EU.

Britain will hold a membership referendum on whether to stay in or out on 23 June this year.