EU Referendum Leaflet

Debate between Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston and Baroness Hoey

Monday 9th May 2016 Westminster Hall

[Kate Hoey]

Indeed, President Obama was quite wrong. When I was in Washington last weekend, we met a lot of senior Democrats and Republicans who said to us quite publicly, behind the scenes, that the UK leaving the EU would really not make any difference whatever to the United States. That is what the ordinary political person in America thinks. However, the vast majority of the American public do not even know what the EU is, so what President Obama said is not too worrying.

It annoyed me so much that one of the facts in the leaflet is:

“The UK has secured a special status in the EU.”

I have read a lot about that and have been through various documents, and I would love to see where that wording is actually included in the renegotiation document by the Heads of Government.

The renegotiation is not legally binding. The hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) has done a lot of work on that in the European Scrutiny Committee. We cannot be confident that the aim of ever closer union will, in any way, do anything other than to take the renegotiation into account. It is so ridiculous that that has been put in, and I want the Minister to respond to that point.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

I raised that point with the Prime Minister and asked him whether he could cite a single occasion when ever closer union was the sole basis for legal judgment. He wrote back to me admitting that there was not an example.

[Kate Hoey]

That “fact” is therefore completely untrue. Although I do not want us to spend more public money, we really should produce another leaflet pointing out all the things that are wrong in this one.

National Referendum on the European Union

Debate between Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston and Baroness Hoey

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kate Hoey]

rose—

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

rose—