National Referendum on the European Union

Debate between Mark Pritchard and George Eustice

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

I was about to come on to precisely that.

I do not accept the argument that nothing can be done until there has been an intergovernmental conference or a new treaty. Where there is the political will, there is always a way, and where needs must, the EU has shown itself able to react quickly and then sort out the lawyers and the legal basis for action later.

[Mark Pritchard]

I commend my hon. Friend for his long-standing convictions on these issues. He talks about a White Paper, renegotiating powers and then a referendum. What timetable does he envisage for that referendum?

[George Eustice]

It would come as soon as we had finished the negotiation, and if I had my way, it would happen very quickly and, certainly, within this Parliament.

The bail-outs in Greece and Ireland were technically against EU law, but the European financial stability facility was agreed and implemented within days; three years ago, the bank bail-outs breached EU state aid rules, but again exemptions were created when needs required it. Sweden has technically been in breach of the treaties for a decade, because it does not have an opt-out from the euro, but the EU has had to learn to live with it, as that is the political reality. The Danish Government have unilaterally introduced extra customs checks on their borders, which are in breach of the Schengen agreement, but, again, the EU has had to learn to live with it.

The lesson from those examples is that EU law is a flexible notion. In fact, the European Union Act 2011 explicitly states that EU regulations and directives have force in this country only when Parliament allows them to, so we must be far more willing to set aside the authority of the European Court of Justice, and crucially we should not let dreary treaties and EU protocols get in the way of taking urgent action to stimulate our economy.

Let us say to the EU that we are going to delay the agency workers directive, making it clear to the institution that it will have to learn to live with that and that we will not accept an infraction procedure. Let us make it clear, during the current negotiations on the budget, that we intend to disapply, for instance, the working time directive, which was mentioned earlier, until we get this economy out of recession.

The European Union would complain, but, if the evidence of the examples I have cited is anything to go by, it would probably take it at least three years to get around to doing anything about it. Such a move might do something else, too. People keep saying, “These European politicians have no intention of having a treaty; they just won’t negotiate with us, so we have to give up,” but if we unilaterally did those things we would suddenly find that there was an appetite for a long-term solution to such issues. It would be a catalyst to get negotiations moving.