National Referendum on the European Union

Denis MacShane Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House calls upon the Government to introduce a Bill in the next session of Parliament to provide for the holding of a national referendum on whether the United Kingdom should

(a) remain a member of the European Union on the current terms;

(b) leave the European Union; or

(c) re-negotiate the terms of its membership in order to create a new relationship based on trade and co-operation.

The motion stands in my name and those of many other right hon. and hon. Members.

I must start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for providing time for today’s debate. It is an historic debate, and the amount of interest generated in advance of it has surely put beyond any doubt the fact that the public are concerned about this matter. It fully vindicates the establishment of the Committee, and its decision to facilitate the debate. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), for Christchurch (Mr Chope), for Clacton (Mr Carswell), for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) and for Wycombe (Steve Baker), along with many others, for their tireless work and support from the very outset. With the leave of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) will briefly wind up the debate.

The motion reflects the wishes of the hundreds of thousands of people who have signed petitions calling for a referendum on the United Kingdom’s future relationship with the European Union. Opinion polls clearly show that millions of others agree with them: in fact, the vast majority of the British people want a vote in a referendum. The arguments for and against the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union can wait until a future referendum campaign. The motion that is before us today simply paves the way for a referendum to be held on some future, as yet unspecified, date. Therefore, any argument that now is not the right time for a referendum to be held is, quite frankly, irrelevant. Even if the motion is passed today, a referendum is likely to be years away.

One reason for people’s increasing concern about our membership of the European Union is the growing sense that this country, indeed this Parliament, is becoming ever more impotent as more and more decisions are taken in Brussels and then passed down to the United Kingdom to implement, whether we like it or not.

I want to mention one very important example of that from my constituency of Bury North. Before the last general election, the Conservatives pledged that if we won the election we would keep open the children’s department, including the maternity ward and special care baby unit, at Fairfield hospital in Bury, which was scheduled to close under Labour’s plans. Sadly, despite that pledge, and despite massive local opposition to the closure plans, these vital services are still destined to close, and one of the driving forces behind the closure plans is the effect of the European working time directive. Thousands of my constituents feel completely let down, and even at this late stage I urge the Government to keep that pre-election pledge and to ensure these services are retained at Fairfield hospital.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Two weeks ago at the Inverclyde Royal hospital, 23-year-old doctor Lauren Connelly died in a car crash. All her colleagues believe that that was a result of her having worked exhaustingly long hours. We should not mock the working time directive. Although it is sometimes improperly applied in the UK, it is also saving the lives of doctors and patients.

[Mr Nuttall]

I believe it is for this Parliament to decide what rules and regulations should be taken up.

The voters know that the tentacles of the European Union intrude into ever more areas of our national life. Understandably, they are saddened—and, indeed, disillusioned—at being fobbed off, as they see it, by the political elite, who always seem to find a reason to stop them having their say.

More than a decade ago, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary coined the phrase, “We want to be in Europe, but not run by Europe.” The sad fact is that since then we have increasingly become run by Europe. I and millions of others in this country want to be in Britain, and run by Britain.

More than 36 years have passed since anyone had the chance to have their say on this crucial matter, and in that time not a single power has ever been repatriated. I suspect that for some in this House there will never be a right time for a referendum on this issue, but I think that, by anybody’s standards, nearly four decades is quite long enough to wait.

Moreover, almost two thirds of the people of the United Kingdom have never had the opportunity to vote on this issue. Indeed, figures supplied by the House of Commons Library show that approximately 8 million of the people who voted yes to continuing our membership of the Common Market back in 1975 are still alive today. That is just 16% of the current voting age population, leaving a staggering 84% who have never voted in favour of Britain’s continued membership of the European Economic Community.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hague]

I will give way to the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), but then I will make a lot of progress.

[Mr MacShane]

Is it now the Foreign Secretary’s view, and that of the Prime Minister, as he seemed to indicate in his statement, that we should have had a referendum in 1985 on Mrs Thatcher’s Single European Act?

[Mr Hague]

I have just stated my view, which is that all the treaties of the past 20 years would have been caught by the 2011 Act and that there would have been a referendum.

Secondly, we have negotiated far harder and far more effectively on the European budget, in which the increases proposed have been totally unacceptable to this country. Working with France and Germany, the Prime Minister has achieved a sharp reduction in the EU’s budget increase and a united demand for a real-terms freeze in the seven years from 2014 without making any concessions of our own.

Thirdly, we have used and will use any treaty change asked for by others to protect and advance our own national interest. The Prime Minister has secured agreement that, in return for accepting a legal basis for the European stability mechanism, Britain will no longer be liable for future eurozone bail-outs through article 122—a liability that the previous Government agreed to in their dying days.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Alexander]

It was the hon. Gentleman’s own Prime Minister who went to Brussels last year asserting that there was going to be no rise in the European budget but left having voted in favour of a rise.

[Mr MacShane]

Can my right hon. Friend confirm that under Margaret Thatcher the CAP took 70% of the EEC-EU budgets, but that that figure is now less than 40%, and that under John Major the EU budget was 1.23% of European gross domestic product, but that it is now 1%? It is not perfect, but reform goes on all the time, and I wish the Foreign Secretary well as he continues those reforms. But do not live with these myths.

[Mr Alexander]

I concur with the bipartisan character of that intervention. The Prime Minister’s isolation results directly from the sad truth that in recent weeks the Government seem to have spent more time negotiating with the people from whom we have just heard.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

I had no real background in politics when I was elected in 2005. I had been a soldier and a television reporter. In fact, I had never even been into the House of Commons Chamber.

A couple of days before the House sat for the first time after the election, I wandered into the Members’ Lobby and chatted to one of the security guards, who let me into the Chamber. It was dark, and I started to think about the historic things that had happened here. I thought of Winston Churchill leading Members out of the House to St Margaret’s church to give thanks for the end of the second world war. And then I asked myself, “Why are you thinking about yourself and how clever you are to have got here?” Actually, this was about the thousands of voters in Gravesend, Northfleet and the villages who had allowed me to overturn quite a healthy Labour majority and replace it with a pretty tiny Conservative one.

Did any of us imagine when we made our acceptance speeches at the counts that Members of Parliament would be slagged off to quite the degree that they are now? My mother does not like to tell people that I am a Member of Parliament, because of the response that she receives when she does.

[Mr MacShane]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Holloway]

I should love to.

[Mr MacShane]

Surely what the hon. Gentleman’s mother does not want to admit is that he is a Conservative Member of Parliament. That is the problem.

[Mr Holloway]

It may have something to do with the fact that she lives in the north of Scotland.

This country developed and exported the simple idea that laws ought not to be made unless they were made by the people’s elected representatives, but it seems from some of the e-mails that I have been receiving over the last three days that some of our constituents are quite close to giving up on that notion. Why is that? We hear the reason every time we meet our constituents. “You are all the same,” they tell us. “You will say anything to get elected.” One of the things on which I have agreed with them over the past seven years is that we should have a referendum at some point, and, in my view, we need to completely rewire our relationship with Europe. We need to be in Europe, not run by Europe.

What we are taking about today is not just Britain’s relationship with the European Union, but the authority and legitimacy of this Chamber. During the last Parliament, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was one of the leaders of all three parties who expressed the view that we should have a referendum on Europe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr MacShane]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Dodds]

I cannot give way again, as I do not want to lose any time. The right hon. Gentleman may well have a chance to speak later on.

Many Members on both sides of the House—including some representing Northern Ireland constituencies—are hiding their views on the euro now. They are shy about letting the people know what they truly believe about it. I am glad that our party has been entirely consistent and principled on that, and that our position has been vindicated.

There are clear reasons for calling a referendum. It is clear that the vast majority of the people of the United Kingdom want a referendum; that is their settled will. Moreover, 36 years have passed since the people have had a chance to deliver a verdict. This is also clearly not a party political issue; rather, it is a constitutional one. Members on both sides of the House hold different views, too, as this is a matter that transcends party allegiance. The people must therefore have their say.

It is nonsense to talk about a referendum being a distraction. The EU and all its works go to the heart of decision making on all aspects of policy in this House and in Government. We must therefore have a chance to deliver our verdict on how the relationship between Europe and the United Kingdom should evolve. Moreover, the crisis in the eurozone and the consequent move to create a tighter fiscal union among its 17 members will have a direct and profound impact on the United Kingdom. That is going to happen, and the Prime Minister has indicated that there is likely to be a treaty change. Therefore, despite the argument advanced by the Foreign Secretary that now is not the right time, it is clear that we are going to have a referendum.

The Foreign Secretary listed the occasions on which he advanced the argument for a referendum. I am glad he did so on those occasions, but I am sorry that he is not advancing that argument now, and that when he did so in the past, there was no talk about a referendum being a distraction and about uncertainty for business. The Conservative party was saying very clearly that it was right to have a referendum. Why, therefore, is now suddenly not the right time?

The crisis in the eurozone offers an opportunity for the British people to be given their say, and we must grasp it. It will be scandalous if the people are denied that chance. We are told that that was not in the manifesto, but that argument does not wash, because a referendum on the alternative vote was not in the manifesto either, yet a referendum on that was inflicted on the people of the United Kingdom.

The Foreign Secretary also claimed that there was a danger that opportunities would be lost if we were distracted by having a referendum, but why should that be the case? Why would we not have the opportunity to continue to advance our case in Europe at the same time as laying the groundwork for a referendum, which he and the Prime Minister admit is likely to be on the cards fairly soon anyway? It is better that we take that into our own hands by making the preparations now, so that we give the people of this country what they want: a referendum.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

rose—

[Hon. Members]

Groan!

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. He has not said anything yet.

[Mr MacShane]

In the spirit of the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), tonight I shall vote for parliamentary democracy and against plebiscites, and I urge all hon. and right hon. Members to do the same.