European Union (Referendum) Bill

Anne Main Excerpts

Friday 17th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

The hon. Lady, whom I have known for many years as a fellow London MP, is infinitely better in touch with her voters than the leadership of her party. I have to say—and I do not mean any discourtesy here—that I am rather glad she is not part of the leadership of her party, because she would be a much greater threat to us than the current leadership is. She is absolutely right. What I find, representing a London constituency, is that people often forget that Londoners, who are part of a cosmopolitan, diverse and open city, none the less believe it is time for us to look again at our relationship with our European neighbours. The hon. Lady is absolutely right; her analysis is spot-on.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree—he said this earlier—that many people say, “I might have voted for the EC, but I would not vote for this”? I think that people are entitled to say that they would like to have a vote again, because they may well have changed their opinions. They may not, but we should at least offer them the choice because what is now on the table is a very different animal.

[Robert Neill]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When I voted previously, I had campaigned to stay in what was then the European Community. I think that many people who voted for membership then would say that the world is very different now, the consequences are very different, and the pressures that have been placed on British business and a raft of our institutions are entirely different, and it is fair and legitimate to ask again. The greatest danger to our long-term relationship with the EU and to long-term business investment would be if we were in a construct that did not preserve our fundamental interests—the fundamental interests of our businesses and, for example, of London as the great world financial pole—and that did not preserve our right to develop our trade links with developing markets in China, India and Brazil, areas where, interestingly, the EU has singularly failed, as yet, to establish proper free-trading agreements. If we did not have a situation recognising the particular circumstances of the UK—rather than pretending all is happy and well in the garden—that would damage long-term legitimacy and would damage business investment and confidence over the long term.

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[Mr Douglas Alexander (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)]

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) on achieving third place in the ballot and on introducing this Bill to the Chamber again.

Labour believes that any judgment about a referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union has to be based on what is in the national interest. We do not believe that a Bill calling for an in/out referendum in 2017 on an arbitrary date unrelated to the likely timetable of major treaty change, putting jobs and investment in Britain at risk, is in our national interest. That is why Labour does not support this Bill. Instead, Labour will legislate in government for a lock that guarantees that there cannot be any transfer of powers from Britain to the European Union without an in/out referendum.

The promoter of the Bill answered the question from the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) by saying that the Bill is about trust. Let us deal with that issue directly. This Bill has not been brought before the House because the Prime Minister suddenly woke up with a democratic impulse or because Conservative Back Benchers trust the public; it is being debated because Conservative Back Benchers do not trust the Prime Minister.

[Mrs Main]

If the right hon. Gentleman does not support the Bill, and given that with some Liberal Democrat colleagues Labour Members could defeat it, why are they abstaining and allowing their cronies in the House of Lords to do their dirty work? Why do they not put their vote where their mouth is on this question?

[Mr Alexander]

With the greatest respect to the hon. Lady, she has never been my lodestar of political judgment, and I therefore think that Labour Members shall make the judgments in relation to the legislative passage of any Bill.

This Bill is being presented for a second time.

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[Mr Alexander]

I want to make some progress.

Earlier this year, Sir Richard Branson said, in no uncertain terms, that

“the last thing the UK should do is leave”

the EU,

“as it would then have no say on how to improve it and make it more productive for all countries involved.”

[Mrs Main]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I hope it is a point of order.

[Mrs Main]

I hope so, too: I will take your guidance on that, Mr Deputy Speaker. We are talking about whether we should have a choice, not about the nuances of what businesses think would happen if we were to leave the EU. Nobody is proposing to leave today. Is it in order for the shadow Foreign Secretary to major on the debate in that way?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

It is for the Chair, as you, as a member of the Panel of Chairs well know, to make that decision. That is not a point of order.

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[Mrs Main]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Alexander]

I have been generous in giving way, so let me make a little progress.

Since we debated the last version of this Bill, the European context has altered. First, the prospect that the Prime Minister hoped for rather forlornly at the time of his speech to Bloomberg—that major treaty change by 2017 would be inevitable—has receded. That is an uncomfortable truth. Secondly, the economic concerns that have been expressed by John Cridland, Sir Richard Branson and many others across the British business community have endured. Thirdly, we have to have the humility to recognise, as was pointed out in an earlier intervention, that there is politics at work in the Bill, and the politics has moved on since the Bill was last debated as well.

Since we last debated the Bill, the Prime Minister has lost a Foreign Secretary who was apparently deemed by his Back Benchers to have gone native in the Foreign Office, to be replaced by a Foreign Secretary—I welcome him to his position on the Front Bench—who, on hearing the news that the then Secretary of State for Education, the current Chief Whip, had suggested that he would vote to leave the EU today, rushed to the television studios to match that Eurosceptic pledge. One would almost think that they were worrying about an election beyond the general election in May 2015. The truth is that one of the reasons why we are once again debating the Bill is that the centre of gravity of the Conservative party has shifted and continues to shift. The Bill is all about internal leadership challenges and external electoral challenges.

I do not want to intrude too much on private grief, although I could probably be tempted, but what has also changed is that the Conservative party has lost two Members of Parliament to UKIP in just the last two months. Who knows how many more will follow? Who knows how many more are now saying, “Never say never.”? That is the real reason for the Bill.

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[Damian Green]

It is true that it covers part of Europe, but I would gently make the point that at the time of the previous referendum there were six members and there are now 28. A considerably larger proportion of the European continent is covered by the European Union now. That is hugely to the benefit of the people living in those countries that were not in the European Union in 1975, and who will be living in the European Union when the referendum happens, as I hope it does, in 2017. The slightly crude characterisation of the Conservative party by the shadow Foreign Secretary was wrong. It is clearly, from his point of view, designed to damage the party, and I think it would damage the Conservative party if that canard was allowed to go unchallenged.

One of the interests that my party has represented very strongly is the business interest in this country. It has been one of the observable facts of the current leadership of the Labour party that, after years of Tony Blair attempting to make Labour a more business-friendly party, all of that has been thrown away. It seems perverse of it to do that, but in partisan terms I am quite happy for it to do it. It is very important that the Conservative party maintains close relations with business interests, both for its own sake and for the wider prosperity of the country. I agree with the point made by the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) that the serious voices in British business want us to stay in a reformed Europe. It is not just the CBI, as he quoted, but the Engineering Employers Federation and many big companies. Ford, BAE Systems, Unilever, Citibank and Siemens have all warned of the damage that will be caused to their businesses if we pull out. Of course, that would affect not just their businesses but tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of their workers. We all need to listen to that voice, because it is a very important one.

[Mrs Main]

None of the businesses my right hon. Friend mentions are advocating that people should not be given a choice; they are simply advocating what they would support should the people be given a choice.

[Damian Green]

I absolutely agree. As I said at the outset, I am strongly in favour of the Bill and will be voting for it for the second time in two years. Given my general stance on European issues, one reason I am in favour of it is because I am in favour of democracy and this is an important historic decision that ought to be put to the British people. At the same time, I am confident that the view that we should stay in a reformed Europe will appeal to the British people, and that those who think as I do will win the referendum vote. So from that point of view, bring it on! There are a number of economic reasons for that: the capacity to negotiate on trade benefits that millions of people in this country get from the single market, and the seriousness with which we are taken in other parts of the world. This debate is not the time to rehearse those arguments—the referendum campaign may well be the time to do that—but there are other arguments as well, arguments of idealism.

The other point I would put, in particular to my own right hon. and hon. Friends who may well believe that Britain would be “better off out”, to coin a phrase, relates to Britain’s voice in the world. It seems to me unarguable that if we pulled out, the rest of the world would, first of all, be completely bemused that here was an advanced prosperous democracy telling 27 friendly democratic neighbour countries that we no longer want to act or be in an organisation with them. Not only would that have a damaging effect on our relationship with those 27 other friendly democracies, it would have a seriously damaging effect on our relationship with the other great powers of the world. It is not credible that an American President, a Chinese leader or an Indian business person would take Britain as seriously if we pulled out of the European Union as they would if we stayed in and played a leading and constructive role in it. Britain’s ability to have a strong voice and, in the words of our former Foreign Secretary, Lord Hurd, to punch above our weight in the world depends partly on our playing a leading role in the European Union and in Europe more widely. That is one more reason why our staying in the EU should appeal to Conservatives.

Many people have mentioned the lessons that we should learn from the Scottish referendum. One lesson I learned is that, although it is vital to win the economic argument, as the Better Together campaign did, it is also important to win the emotional arguments. In a referendum campaign, we will need to engage heads and hearts. For all the current travails of the eurozone, which desperately need sorting out, I believe that an idealistic vision remains.

We live in a continent that has spent centuries tearing itself apart with wars that destroyed communities and whole countries, leading up to the terrible slaughter in the first half of the 20th century. In the past 70 years, that continent has become a haven of peace and prosperity in an increasingly dangerous world, and it has built that peace and prosperity in countries that had previously known nothing but occupation and oppression. Go to Cracow, to Bucharest and to Vilnius and see what people there think. They are proud to be members of a democratic European Union, and we in Britain should be proud of our part in building this peaceful and prosperous continent.

I am very much in favour of letting the British people hear these arguments and of putting them to them in a referendum. I am also proud to be a member of the only party in this House that is wholeheartedly in favour of that—[Interruption.] I am being heckled from a sedentary position by the hon. Member for Clacton (Douglas Carswell), whom I sort of welcome to his new place. Shockingly, I have had private conversations with senior people in UKIP over the past few days. Before the Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton), falls off her chair, I should explain that those conversations were held entirely on the basis of policy. I was assured that UKIP’s position was that it would prefer the House of Commons to vote to pull Britain out of Europe without consulting the British people in a referendum. To be fair, that conversation took place last Monday and today is Friday, so UKIP could well have held several positions since then. I very much look forward to the hon. Gentleman catching your eye, Mr Deputy Speaker, so that he can clarify exactly what UKIP’s position on a referendum is this morning.

I want to end by quoting some wise words from the 1975 referendum campaign:

“The choice is clear. We can play a role in developing Europe or we can turn our backs on the Community. By turning our backs we forfeit our right to influence what happens in the Community. But what happens in the Community will inevitably affect us.”

That was right when Margaret Thatcher first said it in 1975, and it is still right today. For Britain’s sake, we need to make that argument and to trust the people to listen to it. Most of all, we need to pass this Bill with all speed.

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[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I want to set out the settled view of British businesses that we should remain in membership of the European Union. I find it puzzling that so few Conservative Members are willing to set out those arguments today, and why it falls to Labour Members to do so. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), who started to set out the case a moment ago, but his is a very rare voice on his side of the House.

[Mrs Main]

With great respect to the right hon. Gentleman, I think that he is completely missing the point. That is not what the Bill is about. When the Bill is passed and the decision is made to have a referendum, we will listen to the voices of everyone, not just business, and an informed choice will be made. It could be “in” or it could be “out”, but the choice will be with the people. It will not be a case of listening beforehand to businesses which say “Do not give them a choice.”

[Stephen Timms]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention.

“Do I want an in/out referendum? No, I don’t, because I don’t think we should leave.”

That is my position, but, in fact, all that I am doing is quoting to the hon. Lady what the leader of her party said on 5 January 2010, when he was Leader of the Opposition. When he was setting out his case for becoming Prime Minister he rightly identified the question of whether we should remain in membership of the European Union as being central to the determination of whether we should have an in/out referendum. He was speaking at an event called “Cameron Direct” in Hammersmith. Voters were given an opportunity to see what sort of person he was, and to put questions to him. He drew attention to the central connection between question A, “Should we remain in membership of the European Union?” and question B, “Should we have an in/out referendum?” , and he made his view absolutely clear: because he did not think that we should leave the EU, he did not think that we should have an in/out referendum. I am simply setting out the view that he took then. Of course his view has since changed, and we may well want to discuss in this debate why the Prime Minister’s position has changed so radically, as it undoubtedly has. Perhaps the lack of trust among his Back Benchers has led to that change.

[Mrs Main]

We do not know whether Labour Members are in favour of an in/out referendum, because they are not going to vote on it today—they have said they are not—but those of us on the Government Benches would like to give the people the choice. We do not care if there are different views—and there are different views on the right hon. Gentleman’s side, too—because we all have one vote, and the public will decide.

[Stephen Timms]

Well, I want to defend the view set out by the leader of the hon. Lady’s party. On 5 January 2010 in Hammersmith, shortly before he became Prime Minister and when he was leading the efforts of her and her hon. and right hon. Friends to be elected in the general election. He said:

“Do I want an in/out referendum? No, I don’t, because I don’t think we should leave”.

I think he was absolutely right.

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[Douglas Carswell]

The reason I changed my mind was because I came to realise that the promises on Europe of the Administration that the hon. Gentleman defends have all the credibility of a Greek Government bond, and like a Greek Government bond they can be redeemed only on the say so of a German Chancellor. Because I now see that, and many of my former colleagues now see that too, I recognise that the promises are literally incredible. Now that I have realised that, I have done something about it. I leave it to the hon. Gentleman to resolve that dilemma for himself.

[Mrs Main]

I wonder when the damascene conversion came about, because in The Daily Telegraph in April 2014 the hon. Gentleman said:

“In order to exit the EU, we need David Cameron to be Prime Minister in 2017—the year when we will get the In/Out referendum, our chance to vote to leave the EU.”

So obviously it was between April and sometime recently.

[Douglas Carswell]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for once again pointing out that when the facts change, I change my mind. I wonder what she does. When the leader of my party announced at Bloomberg that he was serious and wanted change, no one cheered more loudly or tweeted more joyously than I did. But I came to realise, as many of my former colleagues and those sitting next to the hon. Lady on those Government Benches now realise, it was merely smoke and mirrors. He was not serious about change. The game plan was to secure the illusion of a new deal in the hope that voters would vote to stay in. It is all about not changing. Once I realised that, I did something about it.

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[Thomas Docherty]

I have already given way twice to my hon. Friend, who has spoken at some length. I want to make some progress because other Members want to get in.

Another problem with the timetable is that it assumes that the Prime Minister will be able to renegotiate by the end of 2017. My right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander) spoke eloquently about the Prime Minister’s track record of not being the strongest at winning friends and influencing people, not just in his own party, but in 27 countries. [Interruption.] I appreciate that it is difficult for the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) to stand up sometimes, but he should just get up and say it rather than sledge from a sedentary position. He just wants to chunter away and that is fine.

The Prime Minister has failed repeatedly to win in Europe. Do we really think that the other 27 nations are going to allow the United Kingdom unilaterally to have a series of opt-outs from Europe?

[Mrs Main]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I do not want to infer anything from what the hon. Gentleman has just said, but would he like to explain why my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) has trouble getting up occasionally? I think that was an unfortunate and ill-judged remark.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

The hon. Lady will appreciate that that is not a point of order. We will not take time in this debate discussing the hon. Gentleman’s athleticism or otherwise.

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[Mike Gapes]

I shall not be repetitive at all, Madam Deputy Speaker. I agree with my hon. Friend.

Many companies in Korea, China, the United States and elsewhere around the world wish to invest in Europe. They will be looking closely at whether to invest in this country when there is uncertainty over our staying in the single market. This is a vital issue, and it is time the Conservatives understood that their proposal poses a threat to inward investment, jobs and prosperity. Millions of people in this country work for foreign companies that have come here to invest and to gain access to the European single market. This country is outward looking and global; it has a stable society and the rule of law. It is also involved in the largest single market in the world, on a continent of 500 million people. Half our trade is with the European Union. The Bill represents a threat to that and to the jobs and prosperity of our people. That is a flaw in the Bill.

I have talked about the proposed date, and I will say more about that another time.

[Mrs Main]

The hon. Gentleman is making a deeply passionate speech about the flaws in the Bill. I can therefore guarantee that he will vote against it today. Or is he able to tell me otherwise?

[Mike Gapes]

The hon. Lady will have to wait and see whether there is a vote. I am waiting to see what happens. She will not have long to wait.

There are many flaws in the Bill, and it needs to be significantly improved if it is to be in the interests of our people and our country. I have already mentioned the House of Lords vote earlier this year to change the wording of the question that will be asked in the referendum back to the original wording proposed by the Electoral Commission. I was going to mention the original Government proposal put forward by the Conservative party, but of course it was not a Government proposal; it was a Conservative proposal. I have to keep reminding myself that we are in the bizarre position of having a private Member’s Bill being used as a device for introducing what ought to be a Government Bill. I agree that it should be a Government Bill. We should not be abusing the private Members’ Bill procedure by doing things like this. Many Conservative MPs have been forced to come here today. They have been whipped to come here on a Friday morning and eat bacon butties when they should be out campaigning in Rochester and Strood. Instead, they have to be here because they have been whipped to come and vote on a private Member’s Bill. That is absurd.

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[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

If every single Opposition Member who spoke about the awfulness of this Bill does not reinforce that with their vote today, the public can conclude that they are prepared to let the unelected House at the other end of this Building do their dirty work for them. I have heard from them today nothing good about this small Bill, which simply reinforces the public’s ability to make up their own mind when they have heard all the arguments, whether from business or politicians. Therefore, if those Opposition Members who desperately oppose this Bill do not vote today, they will show the hypocrisy of the Opposition, who prefer to let the other end do their dirty work for them.

[Robert Neill]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

Question agreed to.

Question put accordingly: That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The House divided: Ayes 283, Noes 0.