European Union (Referendum) Bill

Baroness Jowell Excerpts

Friday 5th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. That may well be necessary given that Opposition Members, despite being opposed to the Bill, have not decided how they will vote. They have a few hours to decide.

[Dame Tessa Jowell (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Hague]

I will get through a few more paragraphs, but then I will give way to the right hon. Lady.

I do not need to remind the House that it is almost 40 years since the British people last had a vote on what was then the European Economic Community. Since then, there have been major treaties—four in the last quarter of a century—all of which would have required a referendum had the 2011 Act been in force at the time. Through those treaties, the EEC has become the European Community and now the European Union, and not once has there been a referendum on any of it. Some of us campaigned for referendums on the treaties of Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon. Everyone can concede of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice that the party in government had said that it would ratify them in the general election campaign.

The Lisbon treaty is in a special category, in that there was no mandate in a general election or a referendum from the people of this country. Persisting with the Lisbon treaty with no mandate from either a general election or a referendum—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) asks where I was when Maastricht took place. Is he not aware that there was a general election in 1992? There was no mandate for the Lisbon treaty from a general election or a referendum, and the Labour party deeply undermined the democratic legitimacy of the European Union when it took that decision.

[Dame Tessa Jowell]

May I press the Foreign Secretary on the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed)? In the forthcoming referendum that the Foreign Secretary is advocating, which way will he vote? The Prime Minister has indicated that he will vote to stay in the EU. How will the Foreign Secretary vote?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Tessa Jowell (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on procuring his place in the ballot for private Member’s Bills.

To save time and divert interventions, let me say that I am a lifelong European. I campaigned for and voted yes in the referendum 30 years ago, and I will abstain in the vote on this Bill because it is much more about party management than the essential higher purpose of our national interest. Those who claim that people are being denied a choice on Europe should listen to the wisdom on the doorstep. We must, of course, take seriously the rise of UKIP, and understand why millions of people—including former supporters of my party as well as of the Government—are voting against the major parties. This initiative is being driven by UKIP. It is opening up old divisions and fails to recognise that even for UKIP supporters, Europe is not the greatest concern. We should attend to that if we are serious about hearing the voice of the British people.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

rose—

[Dame Tessa Jowell]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman will have a chance to speak; I will not take an intervention because I want to make my speech as quickly as I can. We must understand that the momentum behind this debate comes principally from a sense of suffering felt by families up and down the country—anxiety about whether their children will get jobs; fears about long-term security and the sustainability of their pensions. Under such circumstances, the EU has become a proxy for the public’s wider anger about good services and housing, and in doing so it has provided fertile territory for a lot of myths about the EU. I do not for one moment doubt the anger—indeed, I have confronted it—in some parts of our country about the impact of too much migration too quickly, and the sense of broader insecurity. People feel that their living standards are falling. They are falling, but that is a result of decisions by this UK Government, not decisions by Europe.

The Bill is principally about managing the Conservative party, and evidence suggests that for the majority of right hon. and hon. Members in that party it is about exit, not renegotiation in Europe. The real tragedy is that renegotiation is possible, is needed, and is always to be achieved, but that is not done by saying one thing at home and a different thing in the Council of Ministers. If the Prime Minister is serious about renegotiation, he must spend time going round the capitals of Europe and visiting his counterparts, building trust and securing the support of other European leaders for his case for change. That is what will achieve change in Europe.

There is, of course, an agenda for reform, which Labour would support wholeheartedly and—I hope—on a cross-party basis, if only the Conservative party would demonstrate that it is serious about reform rather than exit. Reform of the EU budget, the appointment of an EU commissioner for growth, reforming transitional arrangements to address issues such as too much migration too quickly, more powers delegated to national Parliaments—those are all parts of an agenda for reform that I am sure we could share.

For those of us among my right hon. and hon. colleagues who represent constituencies in London, there is also particular concern about the impact on London of the growing uncertainty, which risks unseating us as the economy that is top of the league among beneficiaries of foreign direct investment. Underpinning and essential to that continued primacy is stability and certainty. The way in which this debate is being conducted, in the interests of the Conservative party, is putting that at risk.

In conclusion, I think this captures very well the position on the Opposition Benches:

“the problem with an in/out referendum is it actually only gives people those two choices: you can either stay in with all the status quo, or you…get out. Most people in Britain, I think, want a government that stands up and fights for them in Europe, and gets the things we want in Europe, that changes some of the relationship”.

Those, Madam Deputy Speaker, are the words of the Prime Minister, less than a year ago. Look how he has flip-flopped and been bullied by his party, letting down the British people.