National Referendum on the European Union

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

That is one of the reasons I am giving.

My fifth reason is that the concept of holding a three-way referendum as set out in the motion is innovative but seriously flawed. Leaving aside for a moment all the uncertainty and difficulty which would occur in the run-up to a referendum, which is my final point, if we are serious about this we have to think carefully about what would actually happen in a three-way vote. It is highly unlikely that any one of the three options would receive more than 50% of the votes. If, for the sake of argument, 40% of people voted to stay in, 30% voted to leave, and 30% voted to renegotiate, would that mean that we stayed in without any renegotiation at all? Is this to be a first-past-the-post referendum or a preferential voting referendum? If it is to be a preferential voting referendum, we have just rejected that system—in a referendum. Perhaps we would have to have a referendum on the voting system for the referendum itself.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Hague]

I will give way again in a moment.

If we voted to leave the European Union, would that mean that, like Norway, we were in the European Free Trade Association and in the European Economic Area but still paying towards the EU budget, or, like Switzerland, not in the European Economic Area? If we voted to renegotiate

“based on trade and co-operation”,

as the motion says, does that mean that we would be in the single market, or not; still subject to its rules, or not? Does “co-operation” mean that we still work together on a united position on Iran, Syria and other foreign policy positions, or not? When we had renegotiated, would we, given the wide range of possible outcomes, need another referendum on the outcome of the negotiation?

I point these things out because there is a reason why a referendum is normally held on a specific proposition with a yes or no answer, and I believe that any future referendum must be held on that basis, not as a multiple choice among vaguely defined propositions.

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[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I understand that I have only five minutes, so I will take only two interventions—if people want to intervene—if colleagues do not mind.

I would like to address first the process and principle of the motion and then present-day Europe, if colleagues will forgive the alliteration. The origins of today’s debate lie in the Government’s democratic outreach, through e-petitions. More than 100,000 people signed an e-petition calling for a debate in Parliament on this issue. The Backbench Business Committee then decided that to be the right debate to bring before Parliament and, as Members will know, that Committee is elected by the House. This debate has not been brought about by a small or large number of Conservative Back Benchers, therefore; it is a response to the will and the voice of the British people.

Also, it is wrong to try to frame this debate as calling for an immediate referendum or, indeed, for an in-or-out referendum. That is clearly not the case, as is self-evident from the motion, which is mainstream and inclusive. The motion calls for a Bill and has a timetable referring to this Session. As colleagues will know, that Bill might not come forward for another 18 months and would be subject to the same drafting, the same consultation and the same amendments and new clauses as any other Bill. Therefore, to suggest that the motion necessarily reflects what would be in the Bill is disingenuous at best. Any subsequent referendum would also be consulted on with the Electoral Commission in the normal way and would not necessarily reflect the motion before the House today. This is not about an immediate referendum—I would not support an immediate referendum—nor is it about an in-or-out referendum, which I would not support at this stage. I support a trade-plus relationship with Europe; let us see how Europe responds. If it does not respond, perhaps the British people in future will demand that this Parliament move to an in-or-out referendum.

[Andrew Percy]

Is not the point that as far as pro-Europeans are concerned there will never be a right time for a referendum? Indeed, we could see constituents in Scotland voting on their relationship with the Union with England, while our constituents in England will be denied any say about our relationship with Europe.

[Mark Pritchard]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, as always. We have had referendums on a range of issues, whether in Northern Ireland, London, Wales or Scotland—indeed, referendums on anything but the European issue. I hope that that will change.

Some have accused some Government Members—and even some Opposition Members—of making Europe an issue. I would remind the House that Europe is an issue today because Europe is making itself an issue, not those on our Back Benches. On the principle, millions of people have never had a say on the European question, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) said, because they either had not been born or were not old enough to vote in 1975. Even among those who were old enough to vote, many thought that they were signing up for a common market, not a political union.

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[Mr Redwood]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Andrew Percy]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Walter]

I will not give way any more; I really need to get on.

The European Commission and the European Parliament have ideas and aspirations that sit more than awkwardly with the concept that we all have of a sovereign state. There are those in Brussels who see national Governments and national Parliaments as a nuisance and who think that life would be much simpler if we decided everything at a European level, but thank God we live in a democracy. Thank God we have Members of the European Parliament who are prepared to stand up for the British interest and, more particularly, that we have Ministers and a Prime Minister who can go to Brussels, argue our case and succeed.

What is it that my colleagues and friends want from any new treaty? Have we not had enough of treaties? Can we not at least make the one that we have work? What would a new treaty do? Would it relegate us to the European Free Trade Association or the European economic area? Would it get us the Norwegian deal? They argue that the EU would have to give us access to the single market—yes, but at what price? Norway does not have a free ride in its access to the single market. It does not contribute to the common agricultural policy but it jolly well pays its share to other areas of the EU budget and it gets absolutely nothing back. What is more, its price for access means that it too implements all EU directives—in fact, it has a better record than us, with 99.6% of EU directives having been implemented by the Norwegian Parliament—but the difference is that it has no Ministers at the table when they are discussed. It has no commissioner, no parliamentary representation in co-decision and it has to accept whatever Brussels sends. It is not even a case of, “Take it or leave it;” it is, “Take it, or else.”

We cannot blame Brussels and the wicked foreigners for all our woes. To quote the Prime Minister,

“We are all in this together”.

Europe needs Britain and Britain needs Europe. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary struck the right note earlier. We are in Europe, our history is European and our destiny is European. As far as I am concerned, we are here to stay and I beg my colleagues to reject the motion.

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[Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

Let me be clear: I do not support today’s motion because I believe that it is in Britain’s national interest for us to be involved in the European Union. As has been widely acknowledged by many in this debate and elsewhere, half of Britain’s exports go to the rest of the European Union, and 3.5 million jobs in this country are dependent on our trade with our partners in the European Union. My own constituency is a former mining constituency where manufacturing is now very important. If Britain were to withdraw from the European Union, or even substantially to renegotiate its terms of membership, it would be bad economic news for the people I represent.

[Andrew Percy]

I am interested to hear what the hon. Gentleman says. However, the argument is not about whether we are in or out of Europe but whether we have a referendum. If he is so convinced of his argument, why is he frightened to allow the British people to express their view?

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[Martin Horwood]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, but I have with me the list of how Members voted on our proposal for an in/out referendum at the time when we said it was appropriate, and I do not think his name is on the list of the Ayes. A few Labour Members did break ranks, however.

[Andrew Percy]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Martin Horwood]

I am sorry, I will not give way again, otherwise I will be out of time.

May I also remind some Conservative Members of what was promised in their own manifesto? It promised that any proposed future treaty that transferred areas of power or competences would be subject to a referendum lock. Of course, they actually got that in the European Union Act 2011, which we all voted for only a matter of weeks ago.

[Andrew Percy]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

[Martin Horwood]

No, I will not, I am sorry.

Let us look at some of the options on offer in the motion. We have the renegotiation option, which, frankly, is a fiction. What kind of negotiation would take place if we actually tried to do that? What price would Monsieur Sarkozy or Frau Merkel extract in those negotiations for the disruption and risk that would be posed to the working of the Union? Why would the renegotiation succeed if the other 26 member states did not support it, and why would they support it if the only issue of debate was Britain’s terms of membership? That is why it is such a nonsense to extract renegotiation from any other fundamental shift in relationships that would be happening at the time.

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[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

This is an interesting debate, and I apologise for having missed a few of the contributions. It is also a strange debate, however, in that many of the arguments being proposed in support of the motion do not, in fact, support it. My good friend the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) is not in the Chamber at present. He talked about the £40 billion trade deficit, but anyone who voted for the Common Market voted for that to happen, as, unfortunately, it is inevitable in a free market economy. For instance, 73% of our chemical industry is now owned by companies that are not based in the UK, and that will end up against us in the trade figures.

My hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) is also no longer here. She urged us to put our own logical or ideological assessments before the instructions of the Whips. I have always done that, which is why I am going to vote against the motion. It is not logical to vote for it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) has slipped away. He is not so much a friend as an ongoing further education project for me. I pointed out to him that the only way to get any of what he wants is to invoke article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, which states that we can leave the European Union. That has been put in place very deliberately. However, article 49 states that any country that leaves will be dealt with as if it is a new applicant, with no automatic right to rejoin and no special advantages. All this nonsense about renegotiating, repositioning and working on reform does not apply, therefore, and only a straight in/out referendum would be relevant. We could act upon that, but everything else would be left entirely to chance and to negotiations in the European Council and the European Parliament. That is the reality.

[Andrew Percy]

Surely the hon. Gentleman accepts that we can agree a new treaty that does exactly what many Members on the Government Benches wish. We can leave it to the treaty to achieve that.

[Michael Connarty]

Let me give the following advice to the hon. Gentleman, and to the Scottish National party Member who is present, the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). The SNP thinks that if Scotland votes to separate from the rest of the United Kingdom, it can walk straight into the EU, but that is not the case. Scotland would get into the EU only if it agreed to one major condition: it would have to join the eurozone.

If the UK wanted to get back in, we would have to join the eurozone too. That is the reality, because that is now a condition for entering the EU, and it has been since before the Lisbon treaty. The position is as follows, therefore: we would have to decide in a referendum whether we wanted to be out of the EU, and if we wanted to go back in after that, we would then be at a great disadvantage because a decision would not come into force until after two years. It would have to be ratified by the other states; it would go ahead only if the European Parliament were to agree to it; and there would then be a vote to agree it in the Council under qualified majority terms. We are therefore tied up in knots by the Lisbon treaty, which I have described as a tipping point.

I am glad to see that the mover of the motion, the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), is back in his place. He argued that the closure of an accident and emergency department in his constituency was down to the European Union. If there is such a closure in a Member’s area, the people who can deal with it are sitting on the Government Front Bench. The hon. Gentleman should ask SNP Members about that, because of what happened after their party was elected with a clear majority in the Scottish Government elections. The first thing it did was overturn a proposal to close two accident and emergency units: one in Monklands and the other in Ayrshire. That illustrates the power of Government in this context. Such issues are nothing to do with the European Union, therefore, so the hon. Gentleman should not have made that point.

Some Members have also said that the call for a referendum expresses the settled will of the people. I respect, and am very fond of, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), but that is a very misleading claim to make. If we get 100,000 people writing in to say we should have a vote on a referendum on capital punishment, that would be more likely to be carried than the vote on this referendum. Are we really saying that 100,000 signatures would trigger a debate and vote in the House on a referendum on capital punishment? This is not about the settled will of the people, therefore. It just so happens that a lot of people have sent in some signatures on blogs, and I do not want to pay particular attention to them because I think that it is important that, like the Tunisian people, we respect parliamentary democracy.

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[Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)]

I have listened with great attention to all of the speeches for the past five hours, with the occasional break to take in and then expel a little liquid. I can tell the House that the passion and the idealism, and even the personal courage, has all been on one side of the debate—the side of those who support the motion.

I agree with much that those hon. Ladies and hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House believe and want. I agree with them that Governments of all stripes have given too much power to the EU; that we need to renegotiate the terms of our membership, so that it focuses more on economic matters of trade and co-operation, and less on other issues that Europe was not set up to deal with; and that the British people should have the final say.

However, I will not vote with them tonight for the following reason. Although they have the passion, the idealism and the personal courage, I am afraid that they lack good sense. There will be only one time in the foreseeable future when we can hold a referendum on our membership of the EU—it has been 40 years since the last one, and we are likely to get only one shot in the next 40—and we must use it well. We must hold that referendum when it is most likely to assist us in getting the deal from Europe that we want.

[Andrew Percy]

I can predict exactly what will happen. If we propose a referendum at a time of economic growth, everyone will say, “Now is not the time to have a referendum, because everything is going so swimmingly.”

[Nick Boles]

I thank my hon. Friend, but that was not my point. My point on timing is simply this: we need the promise—or, indeed, the threat—of that referendum to persuade our European partners to give us some of what we want in that negotiation.

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[Mr Burley]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

It is clear that what was put to the people in 1975—we should remember that they voted yes—was the Common Market, but the European Union that exists today would be unrecognisable to those who voted then. When Britain joined the Common Market, it signed up to a free trade agreement. Since then, the power of European institutions has changed beyond all recognition. I am delighted that the Government have enshrined in law that a referendum must be held before any further powers are ceded to Brussels. This is a major step—one that I have supported with enthusiasm.

Frankly, given the EU’s propensities for creating new treaties, I suspect it will not be long before the people get the vote that they desire and deserve. That vote will be important. If the public vote in favour of a future treaty, it will rule out for another generation any thought of us ever leaving the EU. If the public vote to reject it, I believe it would be difficult, if not impossible, for there not to be a subsequent vote on our withdrawal. Given that the referendum that I want is inevitable, as a result of the laws passed by the Conservatives, I must think carefully about the current motion and its impact on the people of Cannock Chase.

[Andrew Percy]

I respect my hon. Friend’s views. Like him, I was born after the last referendum on the matter, but the problem with his argument is that it does not give us the opportunity to have a say on whether we want to be in the EU. That is what my and his generation want to have. We have never been asked that before, and it is about time that we were.

[Mr Burley]

I think that our generation will be given that choice.

I must consider the impact that passing this motion would have on my constituents. That is the key point. Business men have told me that there are signs that give cause for optimism, but that the recovery is fragile.