European Union Referendum Bill

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (UKIP)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that if this referendum is to be considered free and fair it would be wise to ensure the neutrality of the civil service and the machinery of government? Would he look sympathetically at any amendments to try to enshrine in the legislation an appropriate period of purdah?

[Hilary Benn]

We would be very happy to look at all amendments that come forward during consideration of the Bill on the Floor of the House. We have some amendments that we will table. I shall come to those in a moment. I agree with the Foreign Secretary in this respect: once the Government eventually reach a view, they are entitled to explain it to the British people. Indeed, they will have to explain their view to some of the members of the Cabinet. Therefore, it is reasonable to ensure that the Government are able to do that.

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[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

As someone who has been involved in campaigning for a referendum on this subject for many years—alongside colleagues from both sides of the House—it gives me great pleasure to speak in this Second Reading debate. As others have said, it is indeed a great day for this country.

We are all conscious of the astonishing flip-flopping, reversals and clarifications that have accompanied the Bill, although we have to accept that it is right for the Labour party, the Lib Dems and others to change their minds about it—or at any rate for the people to have changed their minds for them. I very much welcome their change of mind.

The Democratic Unionist party has been a strong and consistent defender of the people’s right to have their say on our relationship with the EU. Speaking for the only party that has been consistent and united on this matter in the House during the last Parliament and beyond—the only party that has consistently called for a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU, dating all the way back to the troubles over Maastricht—I am glad that it is almost upon us. Our long-held position has been vindicated. No one can seriously argue or reasonably maintain that the people should any longer be denied the right to express their democratic will on this subject.

We need to settle this matter for a generation, and whatever the result we will respect the will of the people of the United Kingdom, but that will does need to be expressed. Unfortunately, successive Government back-tracking and broken promises have been the hallmark of efforts to deny the people of the UK a referendum. Labour refused to give a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, and in 2010 the cast-iron guarantee given by the Prime Minister was not delivered on. As I said, therefore, it is long past time the British people had their voice heard. That was clear as we went round knocking on doors during the general election. No one under the age of 57 in the United Kingdom has had any say on our relationship with the European Union apart from politicians and diplomats. The impact of the EU is vast, but the ordinary people feel that they have not given any authority for the decisions to be made by people they do not elect.

I do not want to stray into discussing the merits or otherwise of the UK’s membership of the EU today. The Bill before us is about how the people will decide on that matter, so it is to the Bill that we must address ourselves. Unfortunately, there are already a number of grave defects looming. Let us take the timing of the referendum. With polls as important as the three devolved contests and the Greater London Authority elections in the offing, in our view there can be no question of the EU referendum being held on the same day. Yet far from there being a commitment on that, the Bill specifically allows for that possibility. I can envisage no circumstances in which my party would support the EU referendum being held either before the devolved polls or on the same day as any other ballot.

I hope that other Opposition parties, in their haste to abandon previous opposition to the referendum, do not neglect their duty on that front. I am reassured to some extent by what has been said on the Opposition Front Bench today, because to allow the vote to go ahead on the same day as those polls, contrary to the advice of the Electoral Commission and others, would taint the referendum at source, and that would fail utterly to give the clarity on this issue that we all want.

There are other matters that are disguised to make them look technical, but which are so wrong and so misplaced that they also risk vitiating the very point of this Bill: settling the matter of our membership of the EU one way or another. There is no point in the Government unduly influencing the referendum, because that will simply land them another one, and sooner than they think. If the people believe that the referendum is not fairly held and if they are not allowed fairly to have their say, the demand will grow soon afterwards for another say on this issue. Let us take the spending caps. Why on earth are the Government contemplating a regime that could allow one side to so significantly outspend the other? Why not simply provide an equal spending cap? Why are foreign companies with offices registered in the UK suddenly allowed to participate in the poll? Does the Minister not see what polluting the poll at source will risk doing to its outcome?

Then we have the wording of the question, as chosen by the Government. We on these Benches have no fear of saying no. It is a proud and honourable tradition; it is one, moreover, that has had very little harmful effect on the result of referendums, certainly if we look at what happens in other Westminster-model countries. Our phrase during the Belfast agreement referendum was “It’s right to say no”, and sometimes it is. As a result of that, we have delivered a much better way forward. The question could be “Leave or stay?” or “Remain or depart?”, or any other formula along those lines. Ignoring the clear advice of the Electoral Commission against a bald “Yes or no?” question is wrong in our opinion, and the Government’s behaviour in getting the question in the Bill over the line this evening has been discouraging.

I cannot help but agree with those Members who have already publicly voiced their scepticism about why the Government do not intend to observe purdah over the referendum or why they will not provide in the legislation for a requirement on the European Commission or its many arm’s length satellites to observe it here likewise.

There will have to be changes to the Bill in Committee if it is going to be acceptable, certainly to us. This is not yet the place to criticise the specifics of the Prime Minister’s negotiations, whatever they turn out to be. We on these Benches wish him well in his attempts to renegotiate our relationship with Europe. We wish him well in conveying to European leaders the frustration and strong feeling across the United Kingdom on this issue. We support him in his attempts to re-evaluate and reform our relations with Europe, and I hope he succeeds.

[Mr Carswell]

The right hon. Gentleman has been a voice of consistency and reason on this issue for a long time. Will he look sympathetically at any amendment that seeks to enshrine in the Bill that period of purdah, which he recognises is a prerequisite for a free and fair referendum?

[Mr Dodds]

Yes, we certainly will. I detect across both sides of the House a desire to come together on some of the changes that have been referred to, such as purdah and the timing of the referendum date. I think there is room for people of goodwill to get together to ensure that we have a fair referendum that fairly addresses the concerns of the people, and that the decision made is reached on a fair basis.

In our view, the Prime Minister must deliver real and tangible changes to the European project and address the concerns that the people of the United Kingdom have with an ever-encroaching Europe, based on ever- closer political union. He must deliver substantial change in those areas that most concern people, including the issue of those coming to this country from other parts of the European Union. The previous speaker, the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), talked about areas such as Northern Ireland, Scotland and so on being featherbedded. When we have the debate, we will be able to show that the fishermen of County Down in Northern Ireland do not regard themselves as featherbedded. They have been put out of their work and their traditional activities by the EU. Given the extent of our contribution to the EU budget—far more than we get out—they will not recognise themselves as featherbedded.

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[Mr Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I start by congratulating you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on taking the Chair? It is well deserved. May I also congratulate those new Members who have made their maiden speeches today? They have caused many of us to cast our minds back to our own maiden speeches.

I rise as a Member of the Labour party, which did not want a referendum. I did not think that a referendum was necessary, and it is my view that we are better off in the European Union, with its current faults, if there are any. Indeed, whatever future circumstances arise, I think it is inconceivable that the UK could leave the European Union. I am happy with the status quo.

The reality, however, is that we lost the general election, there is now a Conservative majority and a referendum will go ahead, whether we like it or not. This is not, therefore, a policy change that has been brought about because we have suddenly had a change of mind, but a recognition of reality: there is going to be a referendum, whether we like it or not, so the best thing we can do is take part in it and do our best to ensure that Great Britain, or the UK, stays in the European Union.

The reason for the referendum has nothing to do with the high-minded argument that, “It’s about time we had a decision.” Some of the speeches made by Government Members have been beyond credibility. They seem to be suffering from collective amnesia and to have forgotten that the Prime Minister was dragged kicking and screaming into having a referendum because many of his own Back Benchers were talking about making a pact with the UK Independence party so that UKIP candidates did not stand against Conservative candidates. Some of those Back Benchers—one of them is here today—chose to jump ship and join UKIP, and the Prime Minister was scared to death of seeing his own party falling apart before his very eyes. No Government Member has mentioned that simple fact.

The reason we are here today has more to do with holding together the Conservative party in the run-up to the last general election, and the next two years will also be spent trying to hold it together, to the detriment of all the other issues of state that this Government should be dealing with. That puts today’s debate about the referendum in context.

[Mr Carswell]

Does the hon. Gentleman imagine that his party may have done better had it actually allowed voters the choice that other parties gave them?

[Mr Hendrick]

I think we may have done slightly better, but I do not think it would have greatly affected the measure of our defeat—let me put it that way.

Conservatives for Britain, which now has up to 60 members, neglects Britain’s interests in remaining in the European Union. Our place in Europe is about Britain being an outward-looking nation that sees the way in which the world is developing and that recognises globalisation and the opportunity offered by the 21st century and the modern economy. It is not an inward-looking Britain, which is what is suggested when some Members hark back to the days when we had an empire and then a commonwealth. Some Government Members give the impression that they still wish we had that empire, and some do not seem to have realised that the second world war is over and that the Germans are no longer the enemy. In my constituency, for example, we are working with the Germans to build military aircraft to fight other possible future foes. I come from a constituency that spent 100 years building aircraft to fight Germany, but now we build aircraft with the Germans to fight potential enemies elsewhere.

What is happening in the world is that nations are coming together and deciding that it is better to work as closely together as possible. Britain is not the little but extremely powerful nation it once was; it is a less powerful nation working with a much more powerful bloc of European countries—now 28 countries, with more than 500 million people—that can now take on, economically and politically, the likes of the United States and can start to compete with massive developing nations, such as China, India, Russia and Brazil. This is a new world for the 21st century. For Conservative Members still looking back at the loss of empire and our past relationship with European countries, we are a world away from that. They should sit down and think about that.

I have no problem whatever with ever-closer union. The more we can do to enhance our effectiveness through working with European partners on legislation that affects all of us, the better. People say that we could manage on our own, but we would not manage as well. People say that the European Union is not as strong as it was in the past and has a lesser share of trade. Perhaps it has, but it still has far more trade, business and clout than we ever had in the past or ever will have on our own. We must look at superpowers such as the United States and China, as well as the emerging powers I have mentioned.

I genuinely believe that the referendum will be won by the yes camp. By our staying within the European Union, we will see a Europe emerging that is not a united states of Europe, but a unique Europe that will ensure Britain has stability, a voice and a bright economic future and that Britain counts on the world stage in the way it will not if we leave. This debate is a very historic occasion: we will soon have a referendum on our future. I look forward to the debates during the referendum, even though I did not think that it would be necessary and I think it is a shame to spend two years fighting on an issue that I see as a no-brainer.