European Union (Approval of Treaty Amendment Decision) Bill [Lords]

James Clappison Excerpts

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Cash]

Again, I am grateful for the intervention because back in the 1990s during the passage of the Maastricht treaty—and I say this without any sense of self-satisfaction—I predicted that this is where we would end up. Massively high unemployment, riots in the streets, the rise of the far right and the implosion of the European economic system were all predicted in the Maastricht treaty debates. It is there in black and white. It is no good now saying that because those of us who took that position and made those predictions then were right that, somehow or other, we should say, “Well, that is just the past. Let us not worry about the present.” We are looking towards the future and we need to have an association of nation states based on the principle of consent by the voters, who have already expressed their views in repeated opinion polls and are denied referendums.

[Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend recall that almost exactly the same lines of argument and descriptions were applied back in 1990 to the same prophecies about the UK exit from the exchange rate mechanism?