European Affairs

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Peter Kyle

Thursday 25th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I am most grateful for your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd).

I beg a little indulgence for a moment. It is highly irresponsible to bring in the Northern Ireland peace process as yet another scare against voting leave in the referendum. There was an open border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland when Ireland was not a member of the European Union and we were, and perfectly reasonable arrangements will be made with the Republic of Ireland if the United Kingdom votes to leave the EU. There are participants in the peace process on both sides of the debate, and they are talking perfectly constructively together. They will not allow this to become an obstruction to peace in Northern Ireland, and nor should we talk it up, because I think that that would be irresponsible.

I want to make the point that I am not advocating a second vote. If we get a vote leave in this referendum, as I expect we will, that will do for me. The point I am making is that article 50 is a provision of the treaties that we will have just rejected. The idea that we are bound to follow the article 50 provisions after we have just rejected the treaties in their entirety seems a bit odd. Given that the treaties were created by 28 member states negotiating together, 28 member states negotiating together to rescind our membership of the European Union might be a more sensible approach. However, that should be decided by Parliament, not by the Government acting on Crown prerogative in an act of petty vengeance to scare people.

[Peter Kyle]

The hon. Gentleman is saying that once we say no to the EU, we will tear the whole thing up and do it all on our terms, but he expects there to be a cordial relationship afterwards while we renegotiate on terms that are favourable to us. Are not those two things completely and utterly incompatible?

[Mr Jenkin]

Let me put it another way to the hon. Gentleman. Is he seriously suggesting that after the British people have rejected the treaty on the functioning of the European Union and the treaty on European Union, our European partners are going to say, “You may have rejected all that, but you are bound by this”? That is ridiculous. It is absurd. It is far more likely that Parliament will want to discuss the matter, the Government will produce a proper White Paper and we will proceed in an orderly and consensual manner, not in a precipitate one. The only reason those in favour of remaining are raising this is to try to scare people. It is another scare story, and we are not having it.

The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge also talked about uncertainty. May I point out to him that every time we have a general election, there is a certain amount of uncertainty? My goodness, at the next general election, if there is any possibility of the Labour party being elected, boy, there will be uncertainty! There will be uncertainty in the markets, and there will be pound gyrations. Democracy is about uncertainty, but we get more uncertainty where there is no democracy: look at Greece; look at Spain; look at the eurozone. That is uncertainty, and it is the uncertainty that we want to get out of.

If we vote leave, we know what will happen. We will get our powers back. We will get control over our borders. We will be able to spend the money that we send to the European Union as we want to spend it, instead of subsidising our European competitors. Three hundred and fifty million pounds a week, or a net contribution of £10 billion a year—that is a lot of money. We will be able to pay for the roads in Scotland. We will be able to pay for universities. We will be able to pay for the investment in science and research that we need, and then some.

The real question in the debate is what happens if we vote remain. What new laws will be imposed on us after we vote remain? What judgments will the European Court of Justice visit upon us over which we have no control? What about the next treaty? We know that there will be another fiscal union treaty like the one that the Prime Minister vetoed a few years ago. The agreement states:

“Member States whose currency is not the euro shall not impede the implementation of legal acts directly linked to the functioning of the euro area and shall refrain from measures which could jeopardise the attainment of the objectives of economic and monetary union.”

It sounds as though we are giving up that veto. We will not be able to veto a fiscal union treaty if we have signed this agreement, particularly if it is legally binding and irreversible. We are going to be stuffed. In whatever way that treaty affects our interests—we can even have a referendum on it—if we abide by this agreement, we will not be able to stop it. Talk about uncertainty; I think it is safer to leave.

Let me declare an interest as a director of Vote Leave. Let me also praise my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) for raising the tone of the debate and giving us an historical perspective. He underlined the fact that we are at a turning point in the history of our country. I was struck by the shadow Foreign Secretary’s reminder that more than a generation has passed since the last referendum, when his father was opposed and my father was in favour. Today, the shadow Foreign Secretary is in favour and I am opposed. I shall not speak for my father in this debate, but there has been a reversal of roles. The real question is: should the debate be about the past or the future? We do not live in the world as it was after the second world war—pre-globalisation, pre-global trade, pre-computers and the internet, pre-space age and pre so many of the scientific discoveries that affect our world today.