European Council

Philip Davies Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to Dylan Thomas and to Tom Hollander for his superb performance in the drama about the former’s life in America. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we need to scrutinise TTIP properly, but we must do so on the basis of the truth rather than scare stories. I worry that a lot of scare stories are going around about health services, food safety or investor protection clauses, and perhaps his Bill and closer scrutiny can lay some of those to rest.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

We already hand over the best part of £20 billion a year to be part of an inward-facing, backward-looking protection racket, propping up inefficient European businesses and French farmers. The British public do not expect the Prime Minister to hand over a bit less money or to hand it over a bit later: they expect him to tell the European Union to stick the money where the sun does not shine. What is the worst that the European Union could do if we did that? Ask us to leave? In my dreams!

[The Prime Minister]

I do sometimes wish that my hon. Friend would tell us what he really thinks, instead of this shrinking violet approach. We do not necessarily agree on the future, but we do agree that there is only one way to give the British people that choice.