EU Reform
Debate between Richard Shepherd and Julian Lewis(10 years ago)
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Dr Lewis
Indeed. The process has become such a habit that the mask slips very rarely; but there was one notable occasion when the mask did slip. On new year’s eve just over a decade ago, when the European single currency was about to come into force, I saw the then President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, being interviewed at midnight, and he was asked the following question: “This is a political project, isn’t it?” For once he let the mask slip, and he smiled beatifically and said, “It is an entirely political project.”
Sir Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me a brief intervention. In the 1980s the mantra of Conservative Governments and Ministers was “No essential loss of sovereignty.” That was haunted right through and dragged across the nation as if there was a truth in it. Any time anyone suggested that sovereignty is a perfect construction in itself, they immediately wanted to tell us why sovereignty was no longer sovereignty, having said there would be no loss of sovereignty.
Dr Lewis
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend who, like my hon. Friend the Member for Stone and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham, has done so much over the years to try to arrest the slide to a destination that nobody in this country actually wants. The reality is that if there is a single currency, it will only work if there is a single economy. And if there is a single economy, it will only work if there is a single Government. And if there is a single Government, it will only work if there is a single country, which is what the architects of this scheme want us to have. Although they admit to each other that it is political, what they say to us is that it is economic and that it all depends on our economic and trading relationship with Europe. I conclude by saying that just because one has a strong trading relationship with other states, it does not mean that one has to merge one’s currency, one’s economy, one’s population, one’s foreign policy or one’s country with those other states. We want a good relationship with Europe, but we are our own country, which is how we intend to stay.