National Referendum on the European Union

Debate between David Crausby and Kelvin Hopkins

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Crausby (Bolton North East) (Lab)]

I will not be voting for the motion this evening, not because I do not believe that the British electorate are entitled to a referendum on European membership; I do. I shall not vote for the motion because the third option makes complete nonsense of the proposal. It establishes the motion as belonging to the far right of the Conservative party, which wants nostalgically to return to the 1970s when the common market was a big businessmen’s club with no workers rights that contained only nine member states. If that were not the case, the motion would include further left-wing options to improve workers rights, for example, but then it would start to look like an even more ridiculous referendum.

The matter should be clear. The question should be whether we should be in or out of Europe. The present three-way proposal would result in a complete dog’s breakfast, leaving the British people as frustrated as ever. What is clear to me, however, is that public dissatisfaction with our Euro-relationship will not go away because Britain has never really had a fair and democratic say.

We were taken into the Common Market in the first place by a Conservative Government without a referendum because Ted Heath knew full well that the public would not have voted for entry. He was well rewarded by defeat at the next election. When Harold Wilson delivered his promised referendum on the so-called negotiated terms, it was a complete farce. To be fair, his Government were rewarded by defeat at the next election.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I was active in the Labour party at that time and I voted no. My hon. Friend might remember that the great majority of Labour MPs at that time voted no in the referendum and that a special Labour party conference had a big no vote on the referendum as well. It was the leadership who supported our continued membership of Europe.

[Mr Crausby]

Things have certainly changed. The 1975 referendum yes campaign was all about arguing that leaving Europe would take us into isolation. There were even claims from the yes campaign that if we left we would be starved of food. My own employer at the time wrote to every employee, urging them to vote yes, claiming that leaving the Common Market would cost jobs. They employed more than 3,000 people at that time; now they employ just 100—so I suppose matters could have been worse.