European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Kelvin Hopkins

Committee: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Ind)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if Parliament appeared to be dragging its feet on leaving the EU when a majority of the people decided that we should leave, the people would get frustrated with Parliament? We have to remember their wishes.

[Kate Hoey]

I agree. One of the good things about the Minister is that he is not a lawyer, which is perhaps why he has been able to treat this matter with quite a lot of common sense. The debate has been rather taken over by lawyers and lawyer speak, and it is pretty clear that they love things being so technical.

Parliamentary Sovereignty and EU Renegotiations

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Kelvin Hopkins

Thursday 4th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. If we withdrew, we could eliminate the net loss of our contribution to the budget—some say £19 billion, others £14 billion, but either way it is in the billions—and still subsidise regional and other policies, and tailor them to our national and regional needs.

I turn now to the sham of so-called “social Europe”. It is used as a lever to persuade social democratic and socialist parties to say yes to the European Union, but when it comes to the crunch—this would not necessarily impress Conservative Members and certainly not Labour Members, I hope—the EU always finds in favour of employers. Free movement is not about being benign; it is about bidding down wages, ensuring that wages are kept down and profits kept high. It is part of the neo-liberal package of measures that is being driven by the European Union.

In the case of Greece and other southern European countries that have had bail-outs, one of the conditions for bail-out is to put a brake on collective bargaining: “You’ve got to calm down your employees, especially in the public sector. We’re not going to give you the bail-out unless you cut back on collective bargaining.” That is hardly “social Europe”. What about the rights supposedly involved in the charter of fundamental rights? Then, of course, another condition of bail-out is forced privatisations, and we have seen fire sales of public assets in these countries. All these things have damaged social welfare in those countries.

The biggest problem of all has been mass unemployment, falling national output and falling living standards. Greece provides the most extreme example, but other countries have suffered, too. Greece has seen its living standards cut by 25%, and its unemployment is at 25%—50% among young people. Across southern Europe as a whole, youth unemployment stands at 40%. It is nonsense—it does not work economically. The idea that is all about “social Europe” and that it is beneficial to workers is, I think, complete nonsense and simply not true.

[Kate Hoey]

Does my hon. Friend agree that what he has said is predominantly why—

[Kate Hoey]

I am saying that my hon. Friend provides a reason why the trade union movement and trade unionists across the country are catching on to this more and more. Is this not why trade unionists are speaking out and beginning to join and get involved in the campaign to leave?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Yes.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Kelvin Hopkins

Friday 17th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Kate Hoey]

I was about to say that I do not want my party to be the only one going into a general election not supporting a referendum, and I feel that the Liberal Democrats will definitely have this measure in their manifesto, too. I am not a friend of the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) as such, but I imagine that it will be in their manifesto. The Labour party could be the only party going into the election not supporting it, and that would be very wrong indeed.

I wish briefly to discuss some of the issues that will arise if the negotiation happens. I am a bit of a cynic about these negotiations, because I do not feel we will be able to negotiate very much, as the establishment within the European Union does not want the changes that we wish to see. If we end up still part of the agricultural policy and the fisheries policy, and if we still pay billions of pounds into the European Union and get a small amount back, I cannot see that the negotiations will have succeeded in doing anything other than tinker around in a few places, so that somebody can come back from Europe and say that this has been a success.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is far too young to remember the 1975 referendum, but I recall it well. We did have a negotiation then, but can anyone in this Chamber remind me of what the difference was after the referendum, following those negotiations?

[Kate Hoey]

What my hon. Friend says is absolutely right. The European Union has a mechanism for making sure that any real changes do not happen. We will be in a minority, even if we get one or two other countries to support us, and such changes just will not happen.

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[Kate Hoey]

I am sure that all hon. Members could come up with different scenarios, but the fundamental principle is that we are losing control of our own country and of what we want to do in our own country. It is very simple and I genuinely cannot understand why people cannot see that we are losing control of what we want to do here. Of course, we want to co-operate with other European countries. I want to co-operate with all sorts of countries. I would like to see our Commonwealth countries much more involved in what we are doing, as we have treated them scandalously over the years. That is why, if there were a referendum and if we chose to leave the European Union, I would feel quite confident about this country. I want to get our confidence back. I do not want this doom-ridden approach that suggests we have to be part of the European Union because we are only a country and we need it desperately. It needs us, too, and I have confidence that if we were to leave the European Union we would be quite capable of having a prosperous future.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The European Union needs us much more than we need it. Our trade balance shows a gigantic trade deficit with the European Union. We effectively export 1 million jobs because of the £1 billion a week deficit we have with the rest of the European Union. That is the reality.

[Kate Hoey]

Yes, that is the reality and that is what we need to get across. The media must be much more unbiased in their reaction to the European Union. Some of us have spent some time meeting up with the BBC to try to get it to have a much better attitude towards the European Union, because it seems to take the attitude that anyone who speaks out in any way that is critical of the European Union is somehow swivel-eyed—I think that is the word that is usually used. If we have this referendum, the BBC must be clear that it is completely unbiased and will give fair representation to both sides.

I find it very strange that Labour has a policy that if anything extra goes to Europe we would have a referendum. That seems to me to be a bit like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Of course, I supported the policy when it went through and it is good that we got it. At least something changed about our relationship with the European Union, but there are still things happening at this minute. It comes in little bits—drip, drip, drip—and there is no one big thing that can lead us to say, “Ah, we need a referendum on that.” It is a slippery slope, and the process is getting faster every week.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, although I am not yet a Privy Counsellor, and am unlikely ever to be so—but there we are.

Not just Labour voters, but leading figures in the party have historically taken the Eurosceptic view. Hugh Gaitskell, the former leader of the Labour party, opposed Britain’s membership of the Common Market, and I was pleased he did so. Subsequently, we had magnificent leaders who took the same view. My great friend the late Baroness Barbara Castle remained a strong Eurosceptic to the end of her life, as did the late Tony Benn, a great personal friend as well as a great politician. So there have been many Eurosceptic socialists—including, even, Lord Healey, the Labour Chancellor until 1979. I attended a Eurosceptic dinner in the City with figures from various parties, and that was the only time I ever met Lord Healey. So significant figures of great intellect, political judgment and commitment to democratic socialism have taken a similar view to mine.

I have not changed my view since 1975, because our relationship with the EU has become worse, rather than better. We only have to look at the economic catastrophe that is the eurozone to realise how bad it is now. We have to shake up the EU; there is nothing to be gained economically from our remaining members, but then that is a matter for the British people, as and when they have their referendum—hon. Members will guess which way I shall be voting. In previous referendums, political leaders across Europe have sought to persuade their people to vote in a particular way, and they have refused to do so—for example, the French people on the proposed constitution. The Socialist party in France supported the constitution, and it had a referendum among the party membership, which also supported the constitution; but the socialist voters voted the other way, and they lost the referendum. The same happened in Holland, and of course the EU had to withdraw the constitution and replace it with the Lisbon treaty, which was similar, but called a treaty, rather than a constitution.

We have seen others referendums—for example, in Norway and Sweden—on various aspects of the EU, and each time the political leaders have tried to drive their voters in a particular way, but they have refused to be so driven. Now, about 11% of the population in Sweden want to join the euro, and the same proportion in Norway want to join the EU. When the people are asked, they often take a view that upsets the political classes, but in the end, we are democrats and have to accept that view. Regrettably, I had to accept the 1975 view, even though the resources put into a yes vote were massive. The common market threw bucket-loads of money into a massive advertising campaign; every corner shop had a picture of Harold Wilson with his pipe and Gannex mac saying, “Vote yes”. I was part of the no campaign, and we had pathetic resources—a few bob from the trade union movement and not much else.

[Kate Hoey]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that already the EU, in the form of its establishment Commission, is putting huge amounts of money into supposedly educational publicity that actually promotes the EU, and that if we have a referendum, it is important that the EU not be allowed to use our money to campaign in that referendum?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Of course, the EU propaganda machine knows no bounds. We see little blue-and-yellow stickers on almost everything, saying we have had lots of money from the EU and glossing over the fact that we are massive net contributors.

More worryingly, the European Scrutiny Committee, of which I am pleased to be a member, has looked at the BBC and is seriously concerned about its bias. I am a passionate believer in the BBC and public service broadcasting, but the Committee has produced two eminent reports demonstrating the BBC’s pro-EU bias. It must be neutral in the referendum campaign. It must give an equal voice to all sides and ensure the debate is fair. We cannot just have a tiny minority of sceptics, with the enthusiast view put very strongly.

I have said it many times, but I am a lover of Europe. I go there for my holidays every year, I try to speak one or two European foreign languages, I love European culture, European literature and, above all, European people—I am a Eurocentric person in every sense—but the EU is a political organisation with a particular political view. I have spent my life campaigning for democratic socialism, and I think that the EU is not just anti-democratic, but anti-socialist, which might encourage some Conservative Members to vote for it, rather than against it. Nevertheless, I think it is actively anti-socialist, and has been so for a long time, which is why I oppose it. I want to see countries in Europe free to develop their own economies as they see fit, and if that happens to be a socialist view, or a neo-liberal free market view, so be it; the peoples of those countries should be able to choose how to govern themselves.

My view on the EU has got stronger over the years, as we have seen the disaster of the eurozone. Thank goodness my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath kept us out of the euro. Had we pinioned ourselves inside the euro, with the parity operating at the time—€1.60 to the pound—by now we would have seen a catastrophe in our economy of the likes of that in Greece or Spain, although I think we would have got out by now, perhaps because we are more sensible, and possibly other countries would have done the same. I think that the euro will eventually unravel, and when countries can adjust their currencies to appropriate parities and run their economies properly, we will see some recovery, but not before.

We have evidence of a triple-dip recession and that the eurozone is dragging down the rest of the world economy, including our own. However, we have done better than others because our currency has been able to depreciate substantially since the creation of the euro, and particularly since 2008, which has protected us from the ravages affecting the EU. If our unemployment figures were equivalent to those in Spain, we would have 7.5 million unemployed. Imagine that! I do not understand why Spain has not seen a bigger revolt. Nearly 500,000 people have left Spain to go and work in south America and elsewhere because their own country cannot sustain them. It is even worse in Ireland. It has allegedly recovered—I am pleased about that, for the Irish—but it has overcome its unemployment problem by exporting 300,000 people. The equivalent number in Britain would be 4.5 million. Imagine if our economy had failed so badly that 4.5 million Britons had to go and live abroad to get work. That would be a travesty and utterly shameful. I look forward to the time when we establish sensible economics across Europe and that sort of thing does not happen any more.

Most seriously, Germany is now in real trouble. It has long benefited from an open market for its motor cars and other manufactures and from the consequent substantial trade surplus with us and other EU member states. It has squeezed the life out of the economies of other parts of the EU, and now it cannot sell its cars any more, so it is affecting the German economy too. We need a completely different approach to organising the economies of Europe—not the EU, but Europe.

We once had a model that worked. Between 1945 and the 1970s, we had a world, designed at Bretton Woods, that actually worked. Working-class living standards rose at a rate unprecedented in modern history. We saw the creation of welfare states and growing equality. The world I grew up in was wonderful, although it could have been more socialist and more left wing, but we have gone backwards since then across the whole of Europe. It is only because of the vestiges of what was created in the immediate post-war world, sustaining people through welfare states, that the Governments of Europe are getting away with what they are getting away with. We need to see a world in which we start to recreate those things that we have lost. We need to re-establish a more sensible world in which we all have jobs, we create growing equality across Europe and indeed across the world and we have good international relations on bilateral and multilateral arrangements, without being governed by an anti-democratic, non-democratic and bureaucratic organisation called the European Commission, which runs our lives. I support the referendum, and as and when it comes, it is likely that I shall vote no. I will, however, accept the decision of the British people because I am a democrat.

Multiannual Financial Framework

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Kelvin Hopkins

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

I support the amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless); as a signatory to it, I am delighted to do so. I am also delighted that members of my Front-Bench team are, for a change, on the same side as me and my hon. Friends the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) and Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer), among others. It is nice to see so many people in the Chamber.

We sometimes say, “This shows Parliament at its best.” If this amendment is not passed tonight, we will be showing Parliament at its worst, because a lot people here will not be doing what they really want to do. A lot of people here, on both sides of the House, will be doing what their party has asked them to do. I believe, fundamentally, that the issue of Europe has reached the point where party is not as important as the issue. I genuinely believe that we, in this Parliament, are way behind the public on the question of Europe. I am pleased that things seem to be moving in the direction of the Labour Members and the Government Members who see things as I do. Many of us have worked together on this for many years, going back as far as the time of the Maastricht treaty, when the same pressure was applied by the Labour Whips to vote on it as is probably being applied to Government Members now.

I do not believe that the public would understand the nuances being used here. I refer to the weeny words of the Minister, who was not prepared to give way to me for some reason—I do not know what I have done to upset him—on the issue of why the Government could not support the amendment. He said that it was because the amendment did not contain any criticism of my party when it was in government. We have made criticisms of my party when it was in government—I have done so, as have my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North and various others. Many Labour Members and many others within the Labour party did not support the rebate being removed.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Many of us have been critical of the giving away of the rebate, both publicly before the last election and since. The Government make much of that event, but I have said to them in this Chamber, “If you feel so seriously about it, why haven’t you demanded it back?” They have had two and a half years to do that.

[Kate Hoey]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Tonight, we have an opportunity to make it public that there is a united Parliament, for whatever reason and motive. The reality is that we are a united Parliament and we are saying, “We do not want one penny extra spent. We want to see a cut in what the European Union is spending.” I want to see more than that. I want a referendum on our relationship with Europe. I want an end to this nonsense, which we keep putting up with. We could make a decision tonight that says, “We do not want to see an increase—we want to see a cut.” However, come the end of the process, by majority voting, we could be outvoted, no matter how many diplomatic skills we use. I am sure that many hon. Members think that they could do better if they were negotiating, but no matter how good our negotiating skills we may not get what we have asked for. My view is that we should veto at that point and then, when we are sent our bill, we should say no and tell them that we will send what we agreed. We should tell them that we will not send them an increase.

Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Kelvin Hopkins

Tuesday 24th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Indeed, and I think many of the peoples of the European countries that are now suffering would like a referendum as well. What I find difficult to understand is why so many people in the countries facing difficulties still support the euro. I do not know why, because supporting membership of the euro is almost like having a death wish. If only there were some courageous politicians who could say, “The way out of our problems is to recreate our own currency, depreciate it against the countries we’re competing with and reflate behind that barrier,” those countries would start to solve their problems. However, they cannot do it because they are tied into the euro.

We have collective deflation, right across the entire European Union, and although this country is perhaps tinkering round the edges compared with some other countries, that is entirely the wrong way to go. One thing that is causing us problems at the moment is that the eurozone is in such trouble that the euro is now weakening, which, by contrast, is strengthening sterling and making life more difficult for our manufacturers. That is causing problems in many ways. However, if there were a sensible, managed deconstruction of the euro, with the re-creation of national currencies in many, or possibly all, of those countries, thereby allowing them to reflate their economies, they would benefit, as would we, and the whole European Union would then start to work properly—as a group of democratic, independent nations co-operating voluntarily for mutual benefit, rather than something driven by people in central banks or people in Brussels in the Commission.

[Kate Hoey]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend could give me an answer to the question I asked the Minister, to which he did not give me an answer. What are the repercussions for our country if we vote this motion down this evening, as I hope we will?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I hope we do too. As for the repercussions, will we be taken to the European Court of Justice? I suppose that is what happens; however, I think the European Union has other things on its mind rather than punishing us for not sending the Red Book across to Brussels. It has more problems than it can deal with at the moment, and it will not be taking us to court simply for refusing to send across our Budget book, which it can buy in the shops anyway.