National Referendum on the European Union
Debate between Michael Connarty and Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown(13 years ago)
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Michael Connarty
Let me give the following advice to the hon. Gentleman, and to the Scottish National party Member who is present, the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). The SNP thinks that if Scotland votes to separate from the rest of the United Kingdom, it can walk straight into the EU, but that is not the case. Scotland would get into the EU only if it agreed to one major condition: it would have to join the eurozone.
If the UK wanted to get back in, we would have to join the eurozone too. That is the reality, because that is now a condition for entering the EU, and it has been since before the Lisbon treaty. The position is as follows, therefore: we would have to decide in a referendum whether we wanted to be out of the EU, and if we wanted to go back in after that, we would then be at a great disadvantage because a decision would not come into force until after two years. It would have to be ratified by the other states; it would go ahead only if the European Parliament were to agree to it; and there would then be a vote to agree it in the Council under qualified majority terms. We are therefore tied up in knots by the Lisbon treaty, which I have described as a tipping point.
I am glad to see that the mover of the motion, the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), is back in his place. He argued that the closure of an accident and emergency department in his constituency was down to the European Union. If there is such a closure in a Member’s area, the people who can deal with it are sitting on the Government Front Bench. The hon. Gentleman should ask SNP Members about that, because of what happened after their party was elected with a clear majority in the Scottish Government elections. The first thing it did was overturn a proposal to close two accident and emergency units: one in Monklands and the other in Ayrshire. That illustrates the power of Government in this context. Such issues are nothing to do with the European Union, therefore, so the hon. Gentleman should not have made that point.
Some Members have also said that the call for a referendum expresses the settled will of the people. I respect, and am very fond of, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), but that is a very misleading claim to make. If we get 100,000 people writing in to say we should have a vote on a referendum on capital punishment, that would be more likely to be carried than the vote on this referendum. Are we really saying that 100,000 signatures would trigger a debate and vote in the House on a referendum on capital punishment? This is not about the settled will of the people, therefore. It just so happens that a lot of people have sent in some signatures on blogs, and I do not want to pay particular attention to them because I think that it is important that, like the Tunisian people, we respect parliamentary democracy.
Michael Connarty
I voted in the 1975 referendum, and I voted yes. I did not vote in favour of the Common Market; I voted in favour of the aspirations that were so well described by the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter). Do we really think we have lasting peace? How long ago was Srebrenica? What state are the Balkans in at present? Do we really think the search for peace is finished business? It is not finished business by a long way.
I also voted yes because I knew there was a better way forward that was not on offer at that time. That was introduced by Delors, when he brought in the social chapter. That is what I joined the EU for—social agreement. I support most of what would be offered us in the justice and social packages; they would guarantee them for our people as well as for all the people throughout Europe. These are things that are done by negotiation.