Government Referendum Leaflet

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I think that when the Treasury analysis is published, my hon. Friend will find that it contains a full account of the net contribution in the way that he would expect. As he will know, the calculation of the net contribution is published every year by Her Majesty’s Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Who would have thought, this week or any week, that the Labour party would join my own party’s Government in supporting the plutocratic elite, the EU bureaucrats, the investment banks and big business against the people? And we wonder why politics is held in such low regard.

As the Minister will know, the Vice-President of the European Parliament, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, today told the German magazine EurActiv that the Government had gone too far in their Brexit concessions, and that the Prime Minister’s so-called negotiation was legally unenforceable and would, in time, be overturned by the European Parliament. Is it purely coincidental that there is little or any reference to the Prime Minister’s renegotiation in this propaganda document?

[Mr Lidington]

When I have looked at the way in which the February European Council meeting has been reported in the media around Europe, I have seen comments aplenty about this being a big win for United Kingdom diplomacy, and, in some cases, outrage at what people in those countries have seen as a betrayal of federalist ideals. I simply say to my hon. Friend that the President of the European Parliament has made it clear that he wants the deal that was agreed in February to go through and will work to that end, and that the head of the Council Legal Service in the EU has made it clear that the agreement reached in February is legally binding on every member state.