European Union

Denis MacShane Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dodds]

I am sure there will be many such messages flooding in to right hon. and hon. Members over the coming days. There is no doubt that, not for the first time, many Members are out of step with what the people think.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Very simply, what action did the Prime Minister veto? A veto is imposed to prevent something from happening.

[Mr Dodds]

I will come on to that in detail, but he prevented a treaty from coming into place that did not have sufficient safeguards for the United Kingdom. It is a pity that when the Labour party was in government, it did not take such action to prevent some of the things that happened to this country.

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[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds). I know that when she worked for the Socialist group in the European Parliament she was behind the scenes doing deals, but they always involved giving powers away from the United Kingdom and to the European Union. I am sure that, like me, she is desperately upset about the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister has chosen not to be a distraction in this debate either.

The motion makes three points. It

“commends the Prime Minister on his refusal at the European Council to sign up to a Treaty without safeguards for the UK”,

it mentions

“the use of the veto”,

and it refers to

“the desire of the British people for a rebalancing of the relationship with our European neighbours”.

I shall discuss all those points, and try to destroy some of the myths that have emerged from speeches made by Opposition Members.

It is fairly obvious that the British people, as well as some Members, commend the Prime Minister. I have a list of names of dozens of people who have sent e-mails supporting him. They are not Conservative party members or head-bangers. but they are passionate about this country, and I look forward to handing those e-mails to the Prime Minister in the near future.

[Mr MacShane]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I will happily give way to the armless right hon. Gentleman.

[Mr MacShane]

I have to hold my arm up for blood-related reasons.

I have received similar e-mails. In 1983, 50% of the British people wanted to get out of the European Community, and a further 25% wanted a total renegotiation. The Labour party adopted that as its platform and its manifesto for the 1983 election. Margaret Thatcher ignored those feelings with contempt, won that election and the next one, and created the Single European Act without a referendum. What has gone so wrong with the spirit of Thatcher that today’s Conservatives are happy to betray it?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I must tell the right hon. Gentleman that times have changed just a tad since then. I believe that the attitudes of the parliamentary Conservative party directly reflect the attitudes of the electorate. They certainly reflect the attitudes of the electorate in England, and they would probably prove to reflect the attitudes of those in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales should they ever be consulted, as I hope they will be one day.

Let me say something about the veto that we supposedly exercised. I was a Member of the European Parliament, and I saw negotiations of this type up close and personal on a number of occasions. I saw the French walk out of meetings over the common agricultural policy. I enjoyed seeing the Spanish throw a magnificent strop during budget negotiations, which eventually ensured that the bulk of the Spanish fishing fleet was rebuilt or renewed at the expense of European taxpayers. Those countries were doing what most people do in business: they were setting out a negotiating position on the basis of which they could proceed. The one thing that all Members know is that this process will take months to reach fruition. At least we have the starting block of a solid negotiating position, something that earlier Governments were been unable to secure when embarking on European negotiations.

We have other vetoes that could be used in negotiations. One example is the multiannual budget financial perspective. In 2010-11, our net contribution to the European Union was £9.2 billion. We are the second largest net contributor to this club, but we ask very little in return for the money that we give. Our contributions will average about £8.5 billion for the next five years, and we should be demanding much more value for our money.

So many myths have been circulated. Today’s Financial Times—a newspaper that some people consider to be an accurate record of what is going on, as indeed it normally is—contains an article headed “MEP threat”, which states:

“A British MEP who leads the European parliament’s most powerful committee on economics and financial regulation is facing the threat of being ousted in a post-summit backlash against Britain.”

In fact such positions are decided on the basis of the number of MEPs in a political group, and the only people who can oust Sharon Bowles are fellow members of the European Liberal group. That is a complete misunderstanding, and just one of the myths that are peddled nowadays.

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[Mr Donaldson]

I accept that entirely. People who talk about vox pops in France and who quote the French ought to talk to the French farmers about the European Union and the rules that their Government sign up to. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) said, it is all very well talking about Britain being left outside the door, but let us wait until this treaty gets to the people in these member states and see the response when they realise its full consequences. In Northern Ireland, we have of course seen the consequences, at times, of bad European policies. As my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) reminded us, we have seen those consequences and the impact on our fishing industry in Northern Ireland. Our white fish fleet comprised more than 40 trawlers in 1999, but it now numbers just four—that is the result of the common fisheries policy. At the end of the 1990s, the Northern Ireland over-10 metre fleet comprised 240 vessels, but now it comprises 140—that is the result of the CFP. We could also say the same about our farmers, because although there have undoubtedly been some benefits, small farmers have paid a very high price for the common agricultural policy. The directives that have been imposed on agriculture have presented a real challenge for many farmers across the United Kingdom, not least those in Northern Ireland.

[Mr MacShane]

On that very technical point, I would not object if the CAP were abolished, but what would a British agricultural policy—a BAP—look like? How much would it cost in taxpayer subsidies to keep our farmers, small and large, going as we would wish? Has anybody done the figures?

[Mr Donaldson]

The reality is that we would spend a lot more of the £18 billion we give each year to the European Union—half of which we get back—in supporting our farmers to produce the food that our country needs, and we would do so without the kind of silly regulation that Europe imposes on us. If we had a national policy in place of the CAP, we would use our own money to help our own farmers.

The same applies to our haulage industry. I talk to hauliers in my constituency and they tell me that they do not understand these crazy regulations that are imposed at times by the European Union. Business faces the same situation. As we all know, business is struggling as a result of the recession, yet the endless stream of bureaucracy emerging from Brussels continues unabated and we continue to fund those who create those regulations, with no diminution in the budget that goes into the super-structure that is European Union bureaucracy. So, as the leader of my party has pointed out, there are many benefits to the concept of rebalancing our relationship with the European Union. There are benefits for the economy, for business, for farmers, for fishermen and for hauliers—indeed, it is difficult to see who would not benefit from such a rebalancing.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land border with another European member state. When we look across the border, we see the Irish Government subjected to the ignominy of having to give their budget to Europe for approval—and it leaks all over the place—before their Finance Minister has the opportunity to get up in the national Parliament to tell the people of the country what their Government are doing. Many people in Dublin now regard Berlin as the capital of the Republic of Ireland, not Dublin, because that is where the real decisions are being taken about their future.