Europe

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Emma Reynolds]

Germany’s EU membership has not prevented its economy from growing more than 4% in the past two years, nor has France’s membership prevented its economy from growing by more than 1.5%.

I return to the divisions in the Conservative party. There are different factions with different shopping lists. There is an interesting faction that actually quite likes the status quo, but will not admit it, and various Members—not least the Minister for Europe—who are pro-Europeans, but would never call themselves that. I will not name any others, because I might get them in trouble with their local Conservative associations, but it is clear that the gap between what the Prime Minister’s party is demanding and what he can renegotiate with our European partners is unbridgeable.

The Prime Minister’s announcement of an in/out referendum in four years—on an arbitrary time scale, an unknown set of demands and an unknown outcome—will create economic uncertainty. Many of my hon. Friends have made that point. Many business leaders are concerned about the UK drifting towards an exit. A leading group of business leaders warned that to call for a wholesale renegotiation would

“put our membership of the EU at risk”

and cause

“damaging uncertainty for British business”.

Interestingly, back in November 2011, the Chancellor, when talking about a slightly different referendum, said:

“The instability and the uncertainty that hangs over the Scottish economy”

is the result of the First Minister

“raising the prospects of independence without actually providing any detail of when he wants to have his referendum or what the question will be.”

It seems curious that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor cannot see that there is a direct parallel with their commitment to a referendum on Europe.

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

Conservative Members are all united behind allowing the people to decide. The hon. Lady says that there is uncertainty about a referendum, but the uncertainty is: what is Labour’s position on whether the British people will ever have a referendum?

[Emma Reynolds]

We have been clear and consistent about our position. I was in the Division Lobby with each of the right hon. Gentlemen who are sitting on the Treasury Bench, voting against a referendum on our membership in October 2011. We are not the ones who have changed our position; they are the ones who have changed theirs.

The Government’s commitment to a referendum also weakens the UK’s negotiating position with the rest of the EU. Opposition Members would like meaningful reform of the European Union, but we do not do that by blackmailing our European partners. Although my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary has been specific about what kind of EU reform he would like, the same cannot be said of the Prime Minister’s speech last week, which gave very little detail about which powers he wanted to repatriate. Indeed, he did not even mention the word “repatriation”—much to the disgust, I am sure, of his Back Benchers—and he was also unclear about how he would campaign if he was not successful in that negotiation. When the Minister winds up, it would be useful for the rest of the House and the country if he put an end to that obscurity and told us which powers the Conservatives are attempting to bring back. What is their strategy, if they have one, and why are they so sure that the timing, in 2017, chimes with any sort of timing in the European Union? Chancellor Merkel has gone very lukewarm on the possibility of treaty change. It is not clear that we will have any treaty change between now and 2017.