Europe

Debate between Lord Beamish and Baroness Hoey

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander) referred on a number of occasions to the UK and not to Britain. I am afraid that the Foreign Secretary, who talks about “Britain, Britain, Britain”, seems to have forgotten that we are part of the United Kingdom. So I thank my right hon. Friend, but that is probably as much as I am going to be thanking him for. I am here to say on behalf, I believe, of many Labour voters, the majority of the British public and the majority of my constituents that what the Prime Minister said about a referendum, our changing relationship with Europe and the need to bring back powers from Europe is absolutely right, and those comments have been welcomed by the country. I am genuinely disappointed that my party is going to take a little bit of time before, inevitably, it comes round to saying that we want a referendum.

Normally, it is just a few of us who put forward the “Eurorealistic” case in such debates, but it is great to see that today quite a number have come along to put forward that view, which I welcome. I remember when there were just a few of us here and we were supporting the Government in putting in place their EU lock. We said it was right that we should be saying that if any more powers were going back to Europe we should have a referendum. I am sorry that Labour Front Benchers were not in favour of that at the time, but I am delighted that we have changed our mind and are now supporting that.

I know that before the European elections my party will without doubt be saying that it wants us to have a referendum, because that is a basic tenet of democracy. We know that the European Union—the Common Market to which we signed up all those years ago—has changed so much. We have seen many changes and the British public never got the chance to say what they thought about them. We had promises from Members on both sides of the House that there would be a referendum, but we never got that referendum.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the major change in our relationship with Europe was the signing of the Single European Act in 1986 by Margaret Thatcher?

[Kate Hoey]

I perhaps differ in that I do not take that tribal attitude to the matter—I want to do what is best for our country. I do not care who made those decisions; my party made terrible decisions, as did the Conservatives, and the Liberal Democrats always make terrible decisions on Europe. I do not care who did it—it was wrong. I voted against the Maastricht treaty, as did many of us way back then. We were right in everything we said at that time and everything we said about joining the euro, which of course my Front Benchers did have the right view on, and our Government rightly did not join it.

Let us remember something about the people who are now all doom and gloom about what would happen if we had a referendum, and we did not get enough powers back and voted to come out of the European Union. These people are saying that that would be the most catastrophic thing that could happen, but they are the very same people who were wrong earlier—the Richard Bransons of this world and the other top business leaders who, for their own particular interests, have always been in favour of more integration. They were wrong then and they are wrong now, and the British public know that.