After Britain voted to leave the EU in 2016, Brussels feared it could trigger a knock-on effect in several of the bloc’s eurosceptic member states. However, as the European Parliament elections draw closer, it has become clear that right-wing populist movements from countries across the bloc that once advocated quitting the EU are now almost all looking to reform it from within. Last Saturday, Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini led a rally of right-wing nationalist leaders seeking historic results in next week’s elections in their bid to transform European politics.

He was joined by 10 other nationalist leaders, including far-right leaders Marine Le Pen of France’s National Rally party and Joerg Meuthen of the Alternative for Germany party.

The leader of Italy’s League party said his first aim if he gained sufficient influence in the EU Parliament was to rewrite the seven-year budget, which he dubbed “unacceptable”.

He also said he would change the EU’s “fiscal and economic constraints” and return to “pre-Maastricht rules”, referring to requirements that EU nations stick to prescribed limits on public debt and deficits.

However, according to a newly-resurfaced report by the Anti-Federalist Leage (AFL) – Ukip’s forerunner – it is now impossible to achieve Mr Salvini’s dream and reform the bloc because of the Maastricht Treaty.

British academic and politician Alan Sked formed the AFL in 1991, to campaign against the Maastricht Treaty in a bid to “mobilise public opinion in defence of British sovereignty and to prevent the UK becoming a province of a united European super-state”.

Despite being eurosceptic, the party did not want to withdraw from the European Economic Community (EEC) – the precursor to the EU – but, just like most populists parties nowadays, reform it from within.

The party’s manifesto, seen by Express.co.uk, read: ” The AFL welcomes the breaking down of trade and other barriers in Europe and wants Britain to play a leading role there.

“Britain however can only secure her influence by retaining the authority to order her own affairs.

“The vast majority of British people wish only to cooperate with Europe, not to be merged with it.

“They realise that Europe is a state-system not a state. Its strength is its diversity – not its power hungry bureaucracy.”

The AFL’s objections to the EEC at the time were the Community’s expenditure ( today’s EU budget ) and the system being too bureaucratic and irresponsible.

Mr Sked believed these three could have been reformed, but only if the Maastricht Treaty did not come into force.

He wrote in the party’s manifesto: “The Maastricht Treaty makes the process of unification irreversible and if ratified wold offer the UK the alternatives of either becoming a province of a German-dominated state or the renegotiating of our relationship with the Community.

“[Maastricht] puts control of economic and foreign policy completely in the hands of Brussels. Britain would cease to be an independent country if ratified. We would lose the right to control both our domestic and foreign affairs.”

Despite growing opposition in the House of Commons, former Prime Minister John Major signed The Maastricht Treaty in 1992.

To this end, Mr Sked and others met in late 1993 to set up a full-blown political party to campaign for withdrawal from the bloc: the UK Independence Party (Ukip).

Not all members of the League followed Mr Sked into the new party but the organisation did effectively supersede the League, which ceased to exist.

In a letter addressed to Sir John found at the LSE library, Mr Sked accused the former Prime Minister of betraying Britain as Maastricht was “unconstitutional” and “had to be repealed”.

He said: “No government can constitutionally deprive the British people of its right to self-government.

“No parliament can constitutional abdicate its authority to be the sole law-making body for the United Kingdom.

“No sovereign can constitutionally consent to deprive parliament of its sovereignty.

“The UK Independence Party therefore pledges itself to use all democratic means to oppose the three major parties and to restore to all British subjects of all colours and creeds their rights to democratic parliamentary self-government.”

Mr Sked resigned from Ukip in 1997, complaining that the party was becoming increasingly right wing.

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