European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between Douglas Alexander and Simon Kirby

Friday 17th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alexander]

I have been generous in giving way, so let me make a little progress.

Since we debated the last version of this Bill, the European context has altered. First, the prospect that the Prime Minister hoped for rather forlornly at the time of his speech to Bloomberg—that major treaty change by 2017 would be inevitable—has receded. That is an uncomfortable truth. Secondly, the economic concerns that have been expressed by John Cridland, Sir Richard Branson and many others across the British business community have endured. Thirdly, we have to have the humility to recognise, as was pointed out in an earlier intervention, that there is politics at work in the Bill, and the politics has moved on since the Bill was last debated as well.

Since we last debated the Bill, the Prime Minister has lost a Foreign Secretary who was apparently deemed by his Back Benchers to have gone native in the Foreign Office, to be replaced by a Foreign Secretary—I welcome him to his position on the Front Bench—who, on hearing the news that the then Secretary of State for Education, the current Chief Whip, had suggested that he would vote to leave the EU today, rushed to the television studios to match that Eurosceptic pledge. One would almost think that they were worrying about an election beyond the general election in May 2015. The truth is that one of the reasons why we are once again debating the Bill is that the centre of gravity of the Conservative party has shifted and continues to shift. The Bill is all about internal leadership challenges and external electoral challenges.

I do not want to intrude too much on private grief, although I could probably be tempted, but what has also changed is that the Conservative party has lost two Members of Parliament to UKIP in just the last two months. Who knows how many more will follow? Who knows how many more are now saying, “Never say never.”? That is the real reason for the Bill.

[Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Alexander]

I am happy to give way. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will confirm that he intends to stand as a Conservative candidate.

[Simon Kirby]

I am still very confused. I thought that we were debating giving people the chance to have their say. I still do not understand what I should say to voters in Brighton, Kemptown about what the Labour party’s policy is. Why should their voices not be heard?

[Mr Alexander]

The confusion of the hon. Gentleman is a much longer topic of conversation, which extends beyond the parameters of this debate. Let us take a step back and recollect how far the Conservative party, of which he is a member, has journeyed. However, I note that he did not confirm that he will take the Conservative Whip, so he might be somebody else the Chief Whip needs to speak to in the coming days, along with so many others.

Back in the days when the Conservative party still believed that it could win a majority, the Prime Minister said that, “for too long”,

“Instead of talking about the things that most people care about, we talked about what we cared about most. While parents worried about childcare, getting the kids to school, balancing work and family life, we were banging on about Europe.”

Let us take this week as an example. On Wednesday at Prime Minister’s questions, Conservative Back Benchers asked more questions about Europe than any other subject, and here we are on Friday morning, once again witnessing the Conservative party banging on about Europe. It is talking to itself and not to the country all over again. It did not have to be like this. The tragedy for the country—this brings me back to my substantive point about statesmanship—is that the Prime Minister is trying to use a referendum Bill to cover over the cracks in the Conservative party, when he should be seizing the moment for reform in Europe.

In his speech in January last year the Prime Minister set out principles for EU reform, but 22 months later what more have we heard? There was a valiant attempt by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) to elicit more information from the Foreign Secretary on that issue, but we heard only the sound of silence. Yesterday, what started as a screaming headline about free movement, became the squeak of “speculation” by the mid-morning Downing street briefing. Old spin techniques in place of new policy—exactly the kind of approach that leads to distrust in politics today.

Two years ago—let us be honest—the Prime Minister set out five principles of reform of such staggering blandness and generality that there was not really anything for any of us to oppose. Since then, however, we have heard absolutely nothing specific. That silence on the specifics—which we have heard again this morning—is not coincidental but utterly calculated, because the Prime Minister understands that the gap between what Europe will deliver and what his Back Benchers will demand remains unbridgeable 22 months on. He is hoping to sustain party unity through the device of obscurity. We are now in a position where, with months to go until the general election, the Opposition have a far more detailed agenda for reform on Europe than the Government.