EU Membership (UK Renegotiation)

Debate between Daniel Kawczynski and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hollobone]

If we left the European Union, having negotiated our exit, we could have arrangements under which we would allow into this country people from the EU whose skills we need and the EU would allow into the EU British people whose skills it needs. At the moment, without those controls, we have massive net immigration into this country. It may not be an issue in Scotland, but it is a big issue in middle England.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

(Shrewsbury) (Con): My hon. Friend is making an extremely good speech. The media are focusing on benefits to EU workers and they are not sharing with our electorate some of the more important constitutional changes that the Prime Minister is trying to get agreement on. How does he assess the importance of the benefits issue for migrants among his constituents in comparison with constitutional changes they would like?

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[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend demonstrates again that he is a very well read Member of this House and, as usual, ahead of the curve. He is right, because negotiating a free trade agreement with the EU should be fairly straightforward, given our status as the EU’s largest trading partner and the fact that we already meet all the EU’s requirements. One fifth of all the cars produced in Germany are exported to the United Kingdom. Is anyone seriously suggesting that if we left the European Union Germany would want to cease trading with us? With a successful leave vote we could negotiate a successful UK-EU deal.

Many countries around the world already have free trade deals with the EU but do not have to accept the supremacy of EU law like we do and do not have to pay the EU a massive £10 billion and rising each year as a membership fee. If Chile, Peru and Colombia can negotiate successful free trade arrangements with the EU, surely the UK, as the world’s fifth largest economy, would also be able to do so. Our membership of the European Union means that we are constitutionally unable to negotiate free trade deals of our own with other countries.

The EU has been in existence since 1957 and has yet to conclude a free trade arrangement with America or China because 28 countries are involved and getting them all to agree on every detail is proving impossible. I suggest that if we left the EU negotiating free trade agreements with the United States and China would be a top priority.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

My hon. Friend talks about an issue that is very close to my heart—British export strategy—and he referred to the United States of America. Does he believe that if we were outside the European Union we could use our special relationship with the Commonwealth—Canada has an agreement with the EU—to get preferential trading agreements with those countries that are more preferential than those that the European Union has?

[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend is right. I think that many countries around the world that have been unable to negotiate a free trade arrangement with the EU would be all too keen to negotiate one with the world’s fifth largest economy. We would have an appetite for doing exactly that were we to leave.

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[Mr Hollobone]

The hon. Gentleman demonstrates that he is as well read as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), and I am grateful for that—the situation is even worse than I had feared.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

My hon. Friend referred to Martin Schulz. Let me tell him that there is growing disquiet in certain smaller central and eastern European states about some of the language that Mr Schulz is starting to use in cajoling them on certain issues, particularly with regard to the crisis of immigrants from Syria. Will my hon. Friend join me in urging caution on this man in his interactions with sovereign nations along those lines?

[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend needs to realise that these people are impervious to criticism, and the smaller nations in the EU need to wake up quick, because what few powers they retain are about to be taken away should these seven Presidents get their way. They aim to complete that, at the latest, by 2025. Apparently, we are already in the first phase—“Deepening by Doing”—and in spring 2017 there will be a white paper outlining the extent of their plans. To hold a referendum in this country on our membership before the spring of 2017 would be a big mistake, because it would be misleading the British people by not telling them now what is just around the corner. If we stay in the European Union, the future as outlined by these Presidents is that it will be very much in charge of Whitehall.

Our membership of the European Union is bad for us. It costs us each week a net £230 million. That is something like a quarter to a half of England’s schools budget. That money would be far better spent either on reducing the national debt or on our NHS. Also, our influence in the EU is far less than it used to be. It is true that the Prime Minister has upped the UK’s game in opposing measures in the EU Council. For example, from 1996 to 2010, the UK voted against 32 measures in the EU Council; since 2010, the Prime Minister has tried to stop 40. However, we have lost all—each and every one—of those votes and we have only an 8% voting share.

Only 5% of UK businesses export to the EU, but 100% of UK businesses are subject to European rules. Four fifths of Britain’s economy has nothing to do with exports, but is in effect regulated by the European Union. We were told that being outside the eurozone meant that we would not be liable for propping up failing eurozone countries. That has proved not to be the case, with bail-out funds going from this country to Greece. Of course, if the global economy were a motorway, the European Union would be on the hard shoulder. The EU’s share of world trade was 40% in 1972, when we joined; it is set to be 20% by 2020. The accounts have not been signed off by European auditors since 1994. Of course, immigration is out of control, and that is set to get even worse. We can be sure that if Turkey, with a population of 85 million, were allowed into the European Union, the wave of immigration that we have seen from eastern Europe would be dwarfed by the wave of immigration from Turkey, and I predict that it would cause big social unrest in this country, but if we vote to stay in the European Union, there will in effect be nothing we can do to stop that.

Increasingly—we have already had a taste of this during the debate today—many bogus arguments will be made as to why it would be dangerous for Britain to leave the European Union. We have been told that we would lose 3 million jobs if we left the European Union. I would like my right hon. Friend the Minister to confirm today that that age-old claim is completely false and that 3 million UK jobs are not dependent on our membership of the European Union. It demonstrates the weakness of the case of those who want us to stay in that those scare stories are being put around. Of course, so many people told us that we would be disadvantaged if we did not join the exchange rate mechanism and the euro. In fact, Britain has been far better served by coming out of the ERM and by not joining the euro. We currently have the biggest amount of foreign direct investment of any country in the European Union.

I will conclude shortly, because I want other hon. Members to contribute to the debate, but it comes down to this: I am confident about Britain’s future. We are the fifth largest economy in the world. We are a member of many prominent international organisations. Our influence in the world would increase if we were to take back our seat at the World Trade Organisation. It is time for the UK to come off the global hard shoulder and go back to doing what we always did best—being a trading nation around the world. If we remain in the European Union, we will have access to its single market, as we do now, but we will have to pay at least £10 billion a year net as our membership fee; EU judges will have supremacy over UK law; and we will have to submit to the free movement of people, with no control over immigration. If we vote to leave, we will still be able to negotiate access to the single market through a free-trade arrangement with the EU, but we will not have to pay the membership fee; we will get back control over own laws; and, at long last, we will be able to control immigration, which is what constituents in Kettering and, I suggest, across the country want to see.