European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, one of the two great tragedies in this country ever since the previous referendum in 1975 has been the “them and us” mentality of many politicians in this country, and other people outside Parliament. That feeling, unfortunately, continues. It is a very strong manifestation of the feeling that all the other member states are different from us and we are exceptionally different in a merited sense that leaves them standing. The other tragedy is that this country is bedevilled by the worst press in Europe. Apart from a few moderate newspapers, I think that at least seven newspapers supported the Conservative Party in the last election and are owned by foreign-based owners who do not pay UK personal taxes.

I live in France and my friends involved in politics in Paris phone me and ask, “Why do you allow these foreigners to own newspapers in your country, with their corrosive message about the European Union?” Recently, Rupert Murdoch very kindly said that he was changing his mind a bit on Europe and might give a lead in that regard. However, in the mean time, the Express and the Daily Mail continue their campaign of poison on Europe. Most of their stories, particularly those on the front page but also elsewhere, are completely untrue and are not based on any realisable facts about any negotiations in the European Union. If you take the UKIP vote, at least 4 million people must have believed some of that stuff, but some of the others who do are Conservatives and Conservative MPs.

In addition to the other two tragedies that I have described, another tragedy is that the whole thing is a phoney exercise, as we know. We are all pretending. I sympathise with the Minister having to go through the charade of the referendum project. I think the Bill will get passed because people feel that it is inevitable and that, even if you do not like referendums and do not like a lot of the detail in the Bill, you have to support it for the sake of preserving our membership of Europe.

The other reason for this situation arising is that, in the enlarged version of the Bullingdon Club that is the Conservative parliamentary party in the House of Commons, a sufficient number of anti-Europeans has built up. The Prime Minister understandably wished to stabilise his position as a new opposition leader—a young, dynamic, new politician coming in from the background, who was not very well known. He sought to chat people up at Carlton Club dinners and elsewhere about how bad some aspects of Europe were, at the same time saying, of course, that he did not want Europe to be a bedevilling feature of the life of the Conservative parliamentary party. The two things were an astonishing dichotomy and we are still working through this exercise.

I dislike referendums intensely. I suppose the only exception would be if there were an existential decision for one part of the country, such as Scotland—a vote on leaving the wider United Kingdom. There is presumably no other way of doing it, to satisfy all chemical and psychological opinions, than having a referendum. We should think of the damage done by referendums each time we have them, when they are based on false arguments, as Harold Wilson’s was. That was designed to keep the Labour Party together, just as David Cameron now has this phoney exercise to keep his parliamentary party in the other place together. Every time you have a referendum that people know is not genuine, you undermine the authority of Parliament.

I muse on history. We have heard some very good speeches displaying historical common sense from the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and others on the need to think again about the future of Europe, what it means and our membership of it. It is not just economics and trade; it is wider than that and it is very important to the British people.

The difficulty, therefore, is always to make sure that we put the right arguments forward and make sure that the public have the benefit of hearing genuine arguments because we are contending with a press that will not bother to give the details about Europe. I am afraid to say that they are very lazy in the parliamentary Press Gallery. They do not want to know too much about it. They just want the British clash of parties and politicians to be the European story, rather than the real, underlying story of Europe. I was chairman of the Conservative group for Europe before the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral. He mentioned his chairmanship. In those days, the Conservative Party was very enthusiastic about Europe. I worked at a very humble level with our then Prime Minister, Edward Heath, and remember his very poor French when he made the famous acceptance speech in Brussels, when people put their hands over their ears. None the less, the whole feeling and enthusiasm then was encapsulated by distinguished people such as Sir Henry Plumb, as he then was, now the noble Lord, Lord Plumb, and we thank him for his speech today.

One has to think about the spirit of Europe, not just all the details. By the way, I hope that the Minister will take on board the plea made by so many noble Lords today that we should allow 16 year-olds and 17 year-olds to have a vote. I hope that the Government will reconsider that. There is much more that we will need to discuss in great detail in Committee in a fortnight’s time and then two weeks after that. I prefer to deal with just one or two points today that I think reinforce my suggestion that we get back to the spirit of Europe. Why are we afraid of Europe? Why are we childish about Europe? Why is it “them and us”? Why do not the Germans and the French fear a loss of sovereignty? I live in France as well, which is a very patriotic, nationalistic country, and sometimes very bloody-minded in pursuit of its own ends, as we know. Apart from members of the Front National and the Communist Party, which is much weaker now, everybody in France feels that being a member of the European Union is a natural and good thing.

Apparently, according to the historians, in 1880, people started to talk in the United States of the United States being one country—as “is”, rather than “are” denoting the individual states. Europe may never get to that position. It may remain composed of sovereign countries aiming to secure the greater good for everybody by dealing through integrated institutions, sometimes by majority voting but by unanimity as well. I say to Members who are not very keen on Europe that individual sovereignty—national sovereignty in the old sense—last existed in Britain probably in 1912, and even then, two years later, we were subject to a French commander-in-chief in the First World War, so this nonsense must be got out of our system.

I know that some people think this is too avant-garde a suggestion to make so late at night, by why are people in Britain afraid of the euro, as they are? They remember the humiliation of being driven out of the exchange rate mechanism in 1992 and they know that the euro is a very strong international currency, getting closer and closer to that of the United States as the main reserve currency in the world. Sterling, by the way, is 2% in terms of reserves. That is the choice we all face—that of being avant-garde and modern about Europe, and of supporting the young British backpackers who want to be European and study foreign languages. Why do not more parliamentarians speak foreign languages? Why do not more parliamentarians such as the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, live abroad so that they know what it is like to be with foreigners? Why do we not have more knowledge of all these things that add up to the great European Union, which we need and must cherish? We should support this referendum Bill because we have no other choice, unfortunately, and make sure that we win with a huge majority.