European Council

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right. There were two key changes. One was in the Nice treaty, which made the appointment of the European Commission President a matter for qualified majority voting, not a unanimous vote. The second change, in the Lisbon treaty, gave the European Parliament greater power. Both changes were taken through by the then Labour Government, and on both occasions, along with a whole lot of other changes, were not put in a referendum to the British people. I think that is one of the reasons why the well of public opinion has been so poisoned in Britain. We have had treaty after treaty, change after change, power after power taken from this House and passed to Brussels, without the British people being given a say. That is why we need the renegotiation and the referendum. Our power in this place comes from the people who elect us. We cannot continually change the rules of the game without asking their permission.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I, for one, am delighted that the Prime Minister is so enjoying going down in flames. I look forward to him doing exactly the same next May. He said earlier that his defence was that he is a man of conviction, but I suspect the only conviction he knows anything about was handed down in the Old Bailey last week. Is not the one thing that we have learned for certain about this Prime Minister that he accepts reassurances far too readily? Will he give this lot a second chance as well?

[The Prime Minister]

I think the hon. Gentleman was a bit better when he was in the Oxford university Conservative association—he might then have said something I would agree with: I do not agree with any of that at all.