European Union Referendum Bill

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

If the hon. Gentleman can bear to stop wagging his finger and wait a little, I will come to the question of franchise.

To many people, not only in the UK, but across Europe, the European Union has come to feel like something that is done to them, not for them. Turnout in last year’s European Parliament elections was the lowest ever, dropping to 13% in Slovakia. The fragility of the European Union’s democratic legitimacy is felt particularly acutely by the British people. Since our referendum in 1975, citizens across Europe from Denmark and Ireland to France and Spain have been asked their views on crucial aspects of their country’s relationships with the EU in more than 30 different national referendums—but not in the UK.

We have had referendums on Scottish devolution, Welsh devolution, our electoral system and a regional assembly for the north-east, but an entire generation of British voters has been denied the chance to have a say on our relationship with the European Union. Today we are putting that right. After fighting and winning the general election as the only major party committed to an in/out referendum, in the face of relentless opposition from the other parties, today we are delivering on our promise to give that generation its say.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

In the Foreign Secretary’s opening remarks, he referred to the number of changes that have taken place since 1975, when there was last a referendum. Can I take it from what he said that unless the British people have a right to reject all those changes brought about without a referendum he will not be satisfied? Or, can he at least set out today what it is that the Government wish to take back, rather than simply condemning his and all previous Governments since 1975?

[Mr Hammond]

The answer to question No. 1 is no and the answer to question No. 2 is that the Prime Minister has set out in a series of speeches, articles and interviews, and in the Conservative party manifesto, the key areas where we require change to the way that Britain’s relationship with the European Union works if we are to be able to get the consent of the British people to our future membership.

Conservative Members have long been clear that the European Union needs to change and that Britain’s relationship with the European Union needs to change. Unlike the Labour party, we believe that Brussels has too much power and that some of those powers need to be brought back to national capitals. In a world whose centre of economic gravity is shifting fast, Europe faces a serious challenge. If we are to continue to earn our way in the world and to secure European living standards for future generations, the EU needs to focus relentlessly on jobs, growth and competitiveness. Bluntly, it needs to become far less bureaucratic and far more competitive.

With the European electorate more disenchanted with the EU than ever before and with anti-EU parties on the rise across the continent, it is time to bring Europe back to the people, ensuring that decisions are made as close to them as possible and giving national Parliaments a greater role in overseeing the European Union. Such issues resonate across all member states. Change is needed for the benefit of all to make the EU fit for the purpose of the 21st century.

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[Alex Salmond]

Both the Conservative and Labour parties have played into the Scottish National party’s hands on many occasions, but this issue is so important that I appeal to the Foreign Secretary not to play into our hands but to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote in the referendum.

Then there is the question of European citizens. Why should they not have a vote in this referendum? We allowed European citizens to vote in the Scottish referendum because our view of nationality has a civic basis. Unlike Conservative Members, with their narrow-minded nationalism and narrow view of people’s interests, we take a broad view of the matter. We believe in civic nationalism—we believe that if someone engages in a country, lives in a country, works in a country and pays tax in a country, they are entitled to vote on the future of the country.

We have a Member of the Scottish Parliament, Christian Allard, who is my MSP—the Member for North East Scotland. I go to Christian whenever I have a difficulty across the north-east of Scotland that requires resolution. He is a fine, distinguished Member of the Scottish Parliament, but he is to be denied a vote in the European referendum. He has been in Scotland for 25 years, contributing to our community. Why on earth should he be denied a vote?

The franchise to be used is not the general election franchise, because Members of the House of Lords are to be empowered to vote. I know that Conservative Members are frightfully worried about the idea of prisoners being accorded the right to vote because of the European convention, but there are six ex-prisoners in the House of Lords who will be enfranchised by the Foreign Secretary’s proposals. The Foreign Secretary says, “Of course Members of the House of Lords should be able to vote. However, this is an advisory, not a binding, referendum. The House of Lords will have its say on whether a proposal is enacted after the referendum.” However, the Government cannot say that it is to be a general election franchise and then start to change the franchise.

What about the position of other Europeans? It is not the case that all other European citizens are to be denied a vote in the referendum. Citizens of the Irish Republic will have a vote. So will citizens of Malta and Cyprus, because of the Commonwealth entitlement. How can it be argued that some European citizens should be able to vote but others should not? [Interruption.] The Foreign Secretary says it is simple: I suggest—and I say this with some experience of having to conduct a franchise that can be defended in the courts —that the argument that some European citizens but not others should be included will be extremely difficult to sustain if subjected to challenge in the courts. I warn him that he will not find it as easy as just saying to the House that it is obvious that some people should be given the vote and some should be denied it.

On the question of the double majority or quad lock, why should it be the case that Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland—or, for that matter, England—should be taken out of the European Union against the will of that nation? [Interruption.] From a sedentary position, the Foreign Secretary says that it is because we are a United Kingdom, but it was the Prime Minister who said only last September that the essence of the United Kingdom was that it was an equal partnership of nations. He said that we in Scotland should lead the United Kingdom: he did not say that we should leave Europe. Of course, it would be outrageous, disgraceful, undemocratic and unacceptable to drag Scotland out of the European Union against the wishes and will of the Scottish people.

[Mike Gapes]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alex Salmond]

As it is the hon. Gentleman, I will give way.

[Mike Gapes]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. He is surely aware that the population of London, which is the powerhouse of our economy and dependent on relations with the European Union, is almost double that of Scotland. Using his argument, should not London have a separate say too?

[Alex Salmond]

I know that many people in the Labour party find the argument about the difference between a country and a county or city very difficult. I advise the hon. Gentleman that there are many routes to revival for the Labour party in Scotland, but suggesting that Scotland is not a nation, or is equivalent to a city or a county, is not one of the best avenues. All the four component nations of the United Kingdom should be treated with equal respect.

The subject of respect comes to the issue of whether the referendum might be held on the same day as the Scottish, Welsh and, possibly, the Northern Irish elections. I am sure that Ministers on the Treasury Bench will have heard the huge opposition to such a proposal from all those nations, but that does not come only from representatives of those countries or even of London. It also comes from the Electoral Commission, which—last December—not only said that was a bad idea, but gave clear advice to the Government. It said:

“Any government introducing legislation for future referendums, not only in Scotland but also those held across or in other parts of the UK, should also publish at the same time its assessment of the implications of holding other polls on the same day. This will enable legislatures (including the Scottish Parliament and the UK Parliament) to consider the relative benefits and risks of the proposal as they scrutinise the referendum Bill.”

So the Electoral Commission recommended that should be done “at the same time”. We are now discussing the Bill on the Referendum. I ask the Minister for Europe where the assessment is that the Electoral Commission called for in such unambiguous language.

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[John Redwood]

States cannot pool sovereignty. They are either sovereign or they have given their power away. The British people do not think the European Parliament exercises control or power over the Brussels machine in the way that this Parliament at its best exercises power over the British government machine. That can be seen from the way that the British electors do not turn out on anything like the same scale in a European election, because they do not believe in that Parliament and they understand that that Parliament has very limited influence over the unelected bureaucratic government in Brussels.

Now that we are in the EEC and it has evolved into the European Union, the fundamental condition that one Parliament cannot bind its successors has been removed. That has completely undermined one of the basic pillars of our democracy. We had the rule that any new Parliament can amend or repeal any law of a previous Parliament. It can reverse or change any decision relating to the future about the expenditure of moneys or the development of policy. The British people now do not have that full sovereignty. If they elect a new Parliament, the new Parliament discovers, as this one is doing, that there are a large number of areas where we cannot change things to reflect the will of the British people because it would be illegal under European law to do so. We find that, because so many vetoes have been removed, we can no longer prevent things happening from the European government that we do not want. Worse still, because there is a whole body of agreed European law and treaty that we inherit as a new Parliament and a new Government, there are very large areas where we cannot fulfil the will of the British people and we therefore cannot please them.

Fortunately, Britain still has a fairly powerful Parliament because we stayed out of the euro. Those countries that went into the euro are discovering that they now have puppet Parliaments. We see the terrible tragedy in Greece, where the Greek people have understandably said that they want a complete change of economic policy. They want to get away from unemployment and recession and austerity from the European Union and have a pro-growth policy at home, and they are told that they cannot do that because it is against European rules.

[Mike Gapes]

Did the right hon. Gentleman support Margaret Thatcher when she signed up to the Single European Act?

[John Redwood]

No, of course I did not, and I gave her very strong advice not to sign up to the Single European Act. She often took my advice. It was a great pity that she did not take my advice on that occasion, because I fear I was also right on that one. She was a very great lady who did hugely important things for this country—not least getting a lot of our money back, which Labour foolishly gave away, meaning that we are much worse off than we need be—but she was not always right. I think that on that occasion she thought it was going to help a market, whereas the truth, of course, is that we do not need European bureaucracy and a lot of laws to have a market; we just need buyers and sellers and one simple rule, which is that, if something is of merchandisable quality in Britain, it should be of merchandisable quality in Germany and France as well. We had that in the Cassis de Dijon judgment and we did not really need all the extra laws that were being imposed on us.

As we can no longer change things, the British people are going to get very frustrated. We saw their frustrations in the last election. Looking at constituencies that elected Conservative MPs and MPs of other parties, it was very clear to me that there was a strong majority feeling that this Parliament should be able to decide who comes to our country and who is given admission, and that this Parliament should decide how generous we should be on welfare benefits and to whom we should pay them. We might disagree among ourselves about how many people we invite in, how much money we give them and when we first pay them—that is a healthy part of our democratic debate—but the position we find ourselves in today is that we cannot decide those things, because the powers to control our borders and to settle our welfare system have gone to the bureaucracy and courts of Brussels and the continent. They are no longer present in the United Kingdom.

Whenever we have these debates, they often come down to a simple issue of trade. I would like to reassure anyone watching or listening to this debate that our trade is not at risk, whether we stay in or leave. There is no need to accept my word for that—I am sure that many people will not—but they may accept the word of the German Finance Minister, who has very clearly stated that he would like Britain to stay in, but that if we leave, of course Germany would want to trade with us on the same terms as she currently does. And why is that? It is because Germany sells us twice as much as we sell her.

I say to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who would not take an intervention, that there is no way that Germany would want to pay a 10% tariff on exporting Mercedes and BMWs to the United Kingdom; and, because Germany will not want to pay a 10% tariff, nor will our motor manufacturers have to pay a 10% tariff. So worry not: our jobs and our trade are in no way at risk.

We should remember that Britain has faster growing trade with the rest of the world, where we do not belong to a special club, than it does with the rest of Europe, where we do belong to a trade club. There are many such trade clubs around the world, but very few of them are evolving in the European way of imposing more and more government and bureaucracy on their companies and traders, because they believe in prosperity and more free trade. We do not belong to any of those clubs, but we trade extremely successfully with the countries that are in them. If someone is in a club that genuinely promotes trade, they are happy to trade with people from outside that club as well, because they obviously need to be able to trade with the whole of the rest of the world.

Many of us feel that the EU as currently constituted is thoroughly undemocratic. It stifles and prevents the will of a once-sovereign people from being properly expressed. It means that a Government cannot be elected on a prospectus that they can implement in all respects, because the European Union will not let them do so. Above all, the European Union represents the past: it is holding us back. It is something from the last century.

It is a complete myth that the European Union is a body that keeps the peace. The peace is being kept by NATO and by the fact that our partners—France, Germany, Italy and Spain—are all peace-loving democracies. I am amazed that pro-Europeans have such a negative view of our partner democracies in Europe that they think that, without a European bureaucracy, they would all be at war with each other. Of course, they would not, both because they now believe in peace themselves and because NATO and mighty America, as she has done since 1945, are guaranteeing the peace.

Let us get rid of these myths. Our economy is not at risk, and being out of the EU or in a better and new relationship with the EU is the future: it means we can be more prosperous, have more freedom and, above all, restore the sovereignty of the British people. We can restore our parliamentary democracy.