European Union Bill

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

If the hon. Gentleman had spoken to me a couple of days after the general election, he would know that my views were very clear—that under no circumstances would I want a union with the Liberal Democrats. Part of me feels sorry for individual Conservative Members as they have to work with a party with which they are not at all comfortable and sacrifice some things that were very dear to them.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

On this side of the House, we work with the Liberal Democrats, and there is one aspect of their manifesto on which my Conservative colleagues—certainly those on the Back Benches—are happy to work, and that is their very clear manifesto commitment to an “in or out” referendum on the EU.

[Mr Jones]

If there is a referendum, it will be interesting to observe the actions of the coalition. As on many other occasions, it will behave rather like Dr Dolittle’s pushmi-pullyu. Let us be honest: the hon. Gentleman and others are unlikely to agree with the Liberal Democrats on most European issues, given their clear view that nasty foreigners across the water are somehow doing terrible things to this Parliament and this country.

--- Later in debate ---

The Bill discusses holding referendums if there are treaty changes that the Government do not like, but that is a contradiction, because no Government are going to sign a new treaty, then bring it back to the country for a referendum. Government’s responsibility is to negotiate the best deal on a treaty that they can achieve for the country. That is the whole point about the EU—it is an association of nations bound together by a common treaty, and the amendments cannot change that substantial fact. In many areas of national life, the treaty that binds us together in the World Trade Organisation is far more powerful. It can dictate what British goods can be exported, or what Britain has to accept in imports from other countries. That is what the WTO exists to do. It was formerly called, if hon. Members remember, the general agreements on tariffs and trade, and it was a treaty. After 1945, Britain set it up, along with many other treaty-based organisations. There has been much generalised waffle about the common fisheries policy, but an equally important treaty that delineates our territorial waters is the law of the sea, which obliges countries to obey its provisions.

[Mark Reckless]

On a point of order, Mr Evans. Would it be appropriate for the right hon. Gentleman to address his remarks to the amendment?

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I am listening carefully to Mr MacShane, and if he is out of order, I will call him out of order.