EU Council

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me say to the right hon. Lady that I went to Brussels wanting a result at 27, but there were safeguards that I believed that Britain needed. Frankly, you can have all the experience of negotiating in the world, but if you are not prepared to say no from time to time, you do not have any influence or power.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his excellent statesmanship. Does he agree that Britain has much more negotiating strength today, because Europe knows that it is dealing with a Prime Minister who will say no if he needs to, than when we had two Prime Ministers who gave in to bad deal after bad deal, including giving away our rebate for no good reason?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. It is the case that on too many occasions under the previous Government, Britain was outnumbered, but on the issue of the rebate, it was given away for nothing in return simply because they wanted to go along with a cosy and comfortable consensus. Sometimes it is necessary to say no. In my judgment, we did not have the safeguards that we needed, so, as a result, it was right not to agree to this treaty.