European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Douglas Alexander

Friday 17th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Alexander]

I will make a little progress and then I will be happy to give way again.

As I stand here again, a year on, after yet another Friday morning meeting in Downing street to rally the beleaguered troops—I venture to suggest that never have so many bacon rolls died in vain—looking at Conservative Members, or at least what is left of them, gathered to talk about their favourite subject of Europe, I have to say that I feel a certain sense of déjà vu. The only thing that seems different this morning is the absence of the Chief Whip and the Prime Minister.

Even if the Bill has not changed, some things have changed since we last gathered a year ago. Back in January 2013, when the Prime Minister gave at Bloomberg what his aides rather optimistically, as it turns out, briefed would be

“his last speech on Europe in the parliament”,

I was, on balance, prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, even if some of his own Back Benchers, even at that time, were undoubtedly not willing to do so. I believe that when he committed to holding a referendum in 2017, he assumed sincerely that, given the push at the time towards closer eurozone integration, there would be a major EU treaty change within the time frame that he set out. Since that speech at Bloomberg last year, however, the prospect of extensive treaty changes by 2017 has receded rather than grown. He knows that, we know that, Conservative Members know that, and, most worryingly for the Prime Minister, the Back Benchers who are concerned about whether he can deliver on his promise know that.

Only this month, the French Prime Minister—perhaps one of the individuals that the Foreign Secretary has had those obscure and rather elliptical conversations with—said that EU treaty change would be “perilous” and ruled out a “shake-up of its treaties” any time soon. In January, the French President said during a visit to London that treaty change was “not urgent” and “not a priority”. After the signing of the German coalition agreement in November last year—without, I point out, a single reference to treaty change—Chancellor Merkel said in February this year that the Conservatives’ hopes would end in “disappointment”. For full measure, her Foreign Minister then said that it would be “an exaggeration” to assert that Germany and the United Kingdom were on the same page when it came to treaty reform in the EU. We have heard a little more exaggeration from the Foreign Secretary this morning.

Nearly two years on from the Prime Minister’s announcement of a 2017 referendum, the ground beneath his feet has shifted. It has left him asserting, ever less convincingly, that he can initiate, negotiate and secure the unanimous support of 27 European Heads of Government for a fundamental redesign of the European Union within 19 months of May 2015.

How likely a prospect is that for our Prime Minister, given his recent track record of negotiations in Europe? This boast is made by a Prime Minister who just this year managed to turn a Europe divided over Jean-Claude Juncker into a Europe virtually united against the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister was certainly not the first British Prime Minister to take a tough negotiating stance in Brussels, but he will go down in history as the first British Prime Minister ever to lose a vote in the European Council. He went to Brussels with, incidentally, a cross-party mandate—the Liberals and, indeed, the Labour party were behind him—to secure consensus on the best candidate for Commission President, but he failed to build alliances.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Alexander]

It’s called losing, actually, and I do not think that Britain wants a Prime Minister who keeps losing.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The right hon. Gentleman has expressed the utter supineness of the socialists, who give in to everything Europe wants when our Prime Minister is willing to put the British case, even when sometimes that does not succeed. It was courageous and it was the right, firm approach for dealing with renegotiation.

[Mr Alexander]

There speaks the authentic voice of the 18th century! Our dispute seems to be about the efficacy of principle and the effectiveness of statesmanship. The hon. Gentleman argues that the Prime Minister was efficacious in upholding a principle, but I maintain that he was hopelessly ineffective at securing statesmanship on the international stage. Let us remember that the Prime Minister failed to use the weeks following the European elections to work to build a coalition that could have been built with countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Hungary and Italy.

Let us treat that as a textbook example of what the Foreign Secretary has just asserted can be achieved in the months after 2015. If the Prime Minister failed to prevent a not universally popular candidate from becoming Commission President, what hope is there that he could secure unanimous support for a fundamental redesign of Europe on an arbitrary timetable that other European Governments simply do not accept?