National Referendum on the European Union

Austin Mitchell Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

I shall be voting for the motion tonight because I do not want to be part of what has become a three-party conspiracy against the people. It is an abomination of democracy that the three parties, all of which have promised referendums and then denied the people those referendums and which are now forcing us to vote against a referendum, decided to impose three-line Whips on their followers to vote for Europe. It is behaving like Europeans. The EU is the construction of an EU elite that does not listen to the people: it knows where it wants to go, and it is not bothered what the people think. We cannot have that attitude in this country.

We have to show the people that they can have a referendum. When we had a referendum 36 years ago, people voted for a very different institution—for a trading relationship—but it has now become a European monolith with ever-increasing powers. It is moving towards ever closer union and is claiming to control economic policy as well. It is a very different institution and far more expensive. Budget contributions are £7 billion net a year, rising to £10 billion fairly soon. The CAP costs us £16.7 billion while the common fisheries policy costs us £4.7 billion. The British people must have a say on whether they want to make those excessive contributions. Why should the three parties be denying them?

It would have been sensible for all three parties to agree to give us a free vote so that we could hear the sensible, clear, un-Whipped decision of Parliament. That might well have been in favour of a referendum, but I do not know. It would also have been sensible for the Government to have had a referendum in reserve because it would have strengthened their position in the negotiations with Europe that the Foreign Secretary told us were to come, but they avoided that. I cannot tell how this euro crisis, which is bedevilling us all, will work out—nor can the Prime Minister for that matter—but I question whether it is in our interest to keep the euro going. It would be more sensible for Greece to devalue and come out, and perhaps for some of the other Club Med states to do the same, because it would allow them to expand and grow, whereas at present they face 10 years of deflation. That would also put up the exchange rate of the German—or northern—euro, so that it would become less competitive and take a smaller share of our markets. That would be a logical outcome.

We are going to struggle to use the big bazooka, as the Prime Minister put it, to keep Humpty Dumpty together—I am not sure how we would do that—but we have to bear it in mind that the people of Europe also want referendums. There are a series of policy studies based on the 2009 referendum showing that in Europe, 63% of people—from a sample of 27,000—wanted any future decisions to be taken by a referendum. This has been an interesting debate. It has been interesting how little praise for Europe there has been. It was interesting, too, that the Foreign Secretary defended Europe by praising with faint damns and turned down the weapon that the House was offering. I hope that we have tonight a big vote in favour of the motion. It would send a signal to Europe of what the people of this country think—not the elite, but the people—and would send a signal to the people that they can trust us and that we have their interests at heart.