EU Council and Woolwich

Philip Davies Excerpts

Monday 3rd June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Any peace process worth its name has to start with a peace conference, getting the parties around the table and trying to work out the elements of the Syrian opposition and the Syrian Government that could form a transitional Government, but then we have to plan what the Syrian Government and a Syrian political settlement will look like afterwards. One of the lessons from history is that we do not want to see the institutions of the state destroyed. We want to see them properly serving the people.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Did the Prime Minister mention at the EU Council the private Member’s Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton)? Did he make it clear that if the British people voted in any in/out referendum to leave the EU, that result would be accepted and we would not keep having a rerun of the referendum, as the EU normally does until it gets the result that it wants? If he did not make that clear, would he like to take this opportunity to do so?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that there was some interest among my fellow Heads of Government in the private Member’s Bill. I absolutely agree that we must have a referendum, not a neverendum. It is very important that, as with the referendum about Scotland’s future in the United Kingdom, we give the people the chance to decide and then obey their decision.