Sophie in ’t Veld, Dutch MEP for the Liberal Democrats 66 party, does not mince her words. She has filed lawsuits against the US Department of Homeland Security, attacked Pope Benedict’s views on gender theory and deemed Nigel Farage’s claims as probable as a Martian invasion. When I spoke to her before a seminar at the Blavatnik School of Government, tucked away in the green room straight after her arrival, she lost no time in putting forward her opinions.

An honorary associate of the UK National Secular Society and former winner of their ‘Secularist of the Year’ award, Sophie began by outlining the increasing influence of faith groups in European governance. “At the start of European integration in the 50s, there were six countries which set up intergovernmental cooperation in the area of coal and steel, and that didn’t have a very strong ethical dimension. Today, we are over 500 million citizens, and we’re dealing with lots of ethical issues, and there are lots of policy areas with strong ethical dimensions. So ethics has become very important, and I note that the more conservative brands of religious communities have already understood this and they’re very much on top of it, but the more liberal brands of religion and humanist and atheist groups have not yet fully captured this.

“So we see that there is very strong influence from the Vatican – because they have privileged access to the institutions as a state, they don’t have to register as a lobby firm – but we have also seen a very rapid rise in the last couple of years of evangelical groups funded from the US. They are of a very conservative reactionary brand, lobbying very intensively, sometimes aggressively, and they use all the available channels.

“Although I fundamentally disagree with what these groups represent, I welcome their presence. However, I think it’s very important that other voices are heard as well. The problem is that secular voices are usually not organised: if you are a stamp collector, you may join an association for stamp collectors, but if you don’t collect stamps you’re not going to set up an association for non-stamp collectors, so it’s more difficult to get the more progressive liberal voice – which I think is dominant in most European countries – heard inside EU institutions.”

Redressing this balance is one of the motivations behind Sophie’s latest project, which draws a smile as we begin discussing it. “I’m working on something that I find very exciting. I’m the draftsperson for what we call ‘The democracy, rule of law and fundamental rights pack’, and a mechanism to enforce those three pillars of European integration. The funny thing is, if you look at the treaties, there are hundreds of pages, but it starts with Article One, which says ‘hi everybody’, and then Article Two is about our values. Article Two is really the core, but we have not got a single instrument to make sure everybody upholds those values, and we see in some countries like Hungary and Poland, but also a country like France they’re getting side-tracked and they don’t uphold the values as we would like to see them. There may be pressure on the media, or LBGTQ rights, or deportation of Roma people: we need an instrument. For me, this is one of the key issues in my 12 years as an MEP.”

Behind this project, Sophie continues, stands a broader need for integration across the EU which becomes more pressing by the day. “The debate about more or less European integration is being held in all the member states, and it’s dominated very heavily by navel-gazing. We’re completely obsessed with ourselves and how different we all our and how we couldn’t possibly work together because we’re all so different, but we’re inward looking. If we take a step back, all the major challenges in the 21st century – security, refugees, climate change, global economy – they’re all global. At the start of European integration, Europe accounted for around 20 per cent of the world’s population; today, Europe is seven per cent and shrinking as a proportion. We’re becoming less and less relevant, so we have to be smart. In my view, smart is not to be divided; smart is to join forces and do it together, and you have to do it in a democratic, transparent way but with the ability to act. If you look at how we’ve dealt with the refugee issue, it’s a disaster, but not because we can’t cope: we’re 500 million people, of course we can handle 1.5 million refugees, we can handle 3 million! The problem is that the national governments flatly refuse, so we don’t have a common policy. Now we have a disaster.”

Asked whether this debate has contributed to the recent rise of populist politicians across Europe, Sophie gives a derisory sniff. “It’s not only in Europe. The funny thing is, we somehow excepted the fact that people don’t like Europe, or we have the European Union to blame, but that doesn’t explain why we see the same process in the USA. Trump, he’s like Putin or Johnson, Farage, Le Pen; they’re all one brand, but they don’t have the EU to blame in the US so it must be something else. There’s a lot that we should change in the EU, but all-in-all we are the richest continent in the world with the highest life expectancy, best level of education, best social security system. Come on, this is the best continent in the world. It didn’t just happen to us like the weather, we did it because we did it together.

I studied classics at Exeter College. After that I had a year in West Bromwich where I was working in a Church, because I’d started to discern a vocation towards ordination while I was an undergraduate, which surprised me and my family, me more than my family I suspect. I went back to Exeter as a part time D-Phil student and a year later I needed to find another job. The job at Jesus came up and I went for it and that’s that really.

I think obviously the name of the college is quite fun, from a chaplain’s point of view. The jokes never dry up. It’s great fun being at the boathouse and being able to shout about Jesus. There’s lots of scope for humour.

I think that it has become more pressured since I was an undergraduate. I was the first year of undergraduates who had to pay fees – it was gutting! Of course they were much lower then so I am really aware that there are more pressures on students these days, partly because they’re aware how much it’s costing.

I’m here to run the things in chapel and I’m here to be a hopefully good presence in the college. So I try to make myself available to talk to students, from all faiths or none, from all backgrounds, all cultures: everyone. I like chatting with students and I like having coffees with them, as you may have noticed. And equally it’s about trying to build community: welcoming new people, building relationships, letting them know there’s someone out there who cares. So I don’t go round proselytising or anything. I do what I do because of my faith but I think people generally can trust me and come and talk to me, and I’m not going to start talking about God things – unless they want me to.

A lot of people from other faiths use the chapel as well. We have Hanukkah in there as well, that’s always nice. I know that some of our Muslim students feel content to go and use it as a quiet space. It’s a space that’s prayed in. And there’s going to be more scope for interfaith work in the future. I think there’s a real thirst for that in the college. I’m going to be thinking about events which can promote interfaith dialogue, and understanding and valuing of different faiths. I think at the present time in the world, in society, actually, that’s really important. How wonderful that we have the opportunity to do that in a safe context here; where we can really learn to value other traditions, other faiths, and none. It’s an opportunity to learn in a really unthreatening way and to have decent conversations.

The NUS referendum is an access issue. As the current co-chair of the Target Schools campaign and through tours, talks, Q&As, and conferences, I have come to realise which problems we face when we work on our outreach. To put it simply, access is intricately linked with class, race, gender, and higher education policy – intersecting areas on which the NUS is uniquely situated to campaign on.

The NUS, like OUSU, works tirelessly behind the scenes, with students sometimes only catching the soundbites. But no organisation can represent us quite like the NUS. This government is uprooting finance in higher education; the NUS has successfully led the charge against cuts to Disabled Students’ Allowance, held the Liberal Democrats to scrutiny over their false promises on tuition fees, and was the loudest voice against the end to maintenance grants. Perhaps most urgently for us, there is fresh news that we’ll see fees at ‘elite’ institutions like ours raised to £16,000. To load low and middle income students with yet more debt and interest if they choose to apply to places like Oxford is to build another wall around this university for the very students I want to see here. We must say no, and we need a seat at the table to do so.  We must also consider the NUS’s work elsewhere to deal with the everyday expense of university. It provides advice on landlords and rent, pioneered a discount card still unmatched in scope, and extensively researches the financial wellbeing of students. We in Oxford, if we are serious about the barriers this city presents to lower-income students, cannot turn our backs on this.

Many have pointed out the vital work the NUS does for liberation campaigns. Not for a moment do I think my own aspirations as an access volunteer can be separated from the aims of these campaigns. Take just one example: when the Campaign for Racial Awareness and Equality began to push for a more diverse curriculum, the university listened. Now we have lectures on the Curriculum and Race, departmental workshops on curriculum diversity, and are fundamentally rethinking the ways in which our course is shaped. To make our university more receptive to the concerns and perspectives of marginalised voices is one and the same with making it more accessible.

Something that comes up constantly for those working in access is the way we speak about this institution to people who aren’t used to it, whether that’s at home, in our old schools, in the hairdressers. I am proud that so many of us work hard to redress the mythology of Oxford through Q&A sessions, nation-wide conferences, and shadowing days. But we cannot deny that, everything considered, Oxford is a harder place to be for marginalised groups. What we can do point out is that things are getting much better. It is imperative that we listen to the students leading that change, and from what I’m hearing, the message could not be clearer. In Oxford, many from the Women’s Campaign, the LGBTQ+ Campaign, the Disabilities Community, are backing a Yes vote. I am too.

As I said, so much of my work is based in bringing students and teachers to realise that Oxford is not quite what it can look like. So, an important question: how would it look if we left the NUS? My fear is that we would be perpetuating an age-old myth of Oxford exceptionalism. Our university might be exceptional in some ways, but it should never be exceptionalist. We should not shy away from the fact that we are institutionally linked to other universities and further education institutions, and that we can make common cause. Many concerns students currently hold about the NUS are valid, and if we vote Yes, I’m hopeful this referendum will re-engage many students with an NUS they were distant from. But in my day-to-day life, I’m constantly reminding others that Oxford, if a bit quirky, is just one among many universities and colleges. Disaffiliation, I fear, would send the opposite message.

Think about this the other way: how might the NUS need us? In short, I think that we need to stand in solidarity with other students. We need to bulk up the argument against rising fees and rent. This referendum is bigger than us. To say #YestoNUS is to remind ourselves, even in its turbulence, of the importance of a student movement focussed on access, affordability and justice.

It is my belief that we should stay within the NUS. We need to support our liberation campaigns, put forward a united front on student fees and costs, and work against stereotypes of arrogance and elitism that haunt the application process. This is why in sixth week I’ll say #YestoNUS, and why I hope you do the same.