National Referendum on the European Union

William Cash Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

In light of what my right hon. Friend said in advocacy of the single market as it now operates, will he explain why, between 2009 and 2010, our trade deficit with the 26 member states jumped from minus £14 billion to minus £53 billion, and with the eurozone from minus £4 billion to minus £38 billion in one year—last year alone? Why did that happen, and what is his remedy?

[Mr Hague]

The remedy is to restore the health of the British economy, to have a tax system, such as the Chancellor is creating, that attracts businesses to this country, and to create export growth from this country to the whole world, not just to the European Union. We cannot do that if we are not taking part in the free trade agreements that Europe is making with the rest of the world.

The second and third reasons—

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[Mr Alexander]

Talking of absurd scares, it is now 12 years since the right hon. Gentleman pronounced the death of Britain in his book, so I am a little cautious of taking his advice on the matter.

All of us are aware that growth is stalling in Europe. Indeed, growth forecasts were downgraded in Germany just last week. We need to consider the economic effects at home and in our largest export markets abroad if the motion were to be passed. Businesses deciding whether to invest in Britain at this crucial time would have to make that decision not knowing whether it would still be in the European Union by the time that investment came to fruition.

[Mr Cash]

I would be most grateful if the shadow Foreign Secretary would answer the question that I put to the Foreign Secretary about the tremendous advantages that they claim for this economic miracle of Europe. How do you explain that under your watch, when you were in government—[Interruption.] Not yours, Mr Speaker. Can he explain why, under Labour’s watch, the trade deficit with the other 26 member states went up from minus £14 billion to minus £53 billion in one year between 2009 and 2010?

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[Mr Holloway]

I will not, actually.

The Deputy Prime Minister was even louder in his protestations. He said:

“The Liberal Democrats believe we should have a real vote on Europe—whether we should be in Europe or out… the public back our position by a margin of 2:1”.

I should say that the margin is about the same today. Those statements, and many more from the Front Benches, render irrelevant the arguments that we have heard today about whether this is the right moment for a referendum.

I am sure that if the Government had not liked today’s motion, they could have come up with something. What would it say about the relationship between Parliament and the people if we were to deny not only what we have recently promised, but what people out there, at our invitation, have asked us to do through the petition?

I should have much preferred a Conservative Government, but I support this Government sincerely and spiritedly. I was one of only about 50 Back Benchers who supported my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) in the leadership election, and now I really do think—I am not just sucking up—that he is a brilliant Prime Minister. I have never voted against the party line, even when I have known enough about what we were discussing to be aware that I should vote against it. I have loved doing my minuscule job as a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the foreign affairs team, whose Ministers I respect—and believe me, they are doing a very good job. Trust me, and again I am not sucking up, they do not come better than the Minister for Europe—“Hear, hear” at this point. [Laughter.]

I am mostly enthusiastic about the coalition in private. If you are part of a team, you support it. But if you cannot support a particular policy, the honest course of action is of course to stand down. I want decisions to be closer to the people whom they affect—to be made by local communities, not sent upwards towards Brussels. I am not prepared to go back on my word to my constituents, and I am really staggered that loyal people like me have been put in this position. If Britain’s future as an independent country is not a proper matter for a referendum, I have absolutely no idea what is.

[Mr Cash]

Many people in the country, knowing of the integrity and the honesty that is reflected in my hon. Friend’s speech and knowing that this honourable gentleman—this honourable friend—has decided that he will resign his position as a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Foreign Office on a matter of such importance, will commend him for it.

[Mr Holloway]

Obviously, I completely agree with my hon. Friend.

We do not have the right to give away powers entrusted to us by our constituents. To anyone who is still wondering which way to vote, I say: “Do not try to guess what the result of a referendum would be, and do not worry about wording or timing. You need only ask yourself two questions. First, is this the right thing to do in principle? Secondly, what do your constituents want you to do?” Here is our opportunity to show people that the system can work, that representative government continues to function in the land where it was nurtured and developed, and that patriotism—putting one’s country rather than one’s own interests first—is not foreign to the House.

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[Mr Walter]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right—it was a political argument. What I am sad about is that there are those who want to destroy that legacy and the legacy of those who fought and voted for that lasting peace—a Europe in harmony, comfortable with itself and respecting differences of culture, language, history and nationality, but confident in its ability to work together.

[Mr Cash]

I just want to mention to my hon. Friend that my father was killed in the war in Normandy and I am sure that he, together with all the others, also appreciated that what they were doing was fighting for freedom and for the democracy that is being put at risk by opposition to this motion.

[Mr Walter]

I hope that that is not correct and I remind my hon. Friend that he and I first met when we were both on a committee of the European Movement, which, of course, had just campaigned for a yes vote in that very referendum.

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[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

A few months ago the Prime Minister asked me after a debate to write to him about my views on the European Union, so I wrote him a pamphlet called “It’s the EU, stupid.” That was a reference not to him, but to Bill Clinton’s recognition that the economy is at the heart of the issue. In just the same way, I believe fundamentally, as I have set out in the pamphlet—I will quickly encapsulate some of the thoughts it contains—that this is first of all a matter of principle. The referendum issue has been going around since before the Maastricht referendum campaign. I voted yes, as it happens, in 1975, but since then we have seen the accumulation of powers and the broken promises, betrayals and prevarication. The argument is that it is never the right time to deal with these issues, but that is the problem, and the British people feel that they have been betrayed by a failure to deliver on those promises.

[Steve Baker]

I would have voted yes in 1975, but does my hon. Friend agree that the EU has gone far beyond that which is necessary to guarantee peace and prosperity?

[Mr Cash]

Yes, indeed, and I will go further: the EU has created a situation in which it actually damages our economy. That is the problem, and that is the reversal of the situation, with massive over-regulation—£8 billion a year, according to the British Chambers of Commerce—over the past 20 years in this country alone.

As I said earlier in my interventions on the Foreign Secretary and the shadow Foreign Secretary, we are running the single market on a deficit that has gone up in the last year alone by as much as £40 billion, so it would be inconceivable for us not to take a rain-check and say, “We cannot just continue with this and pretend that nothing is going on.”

If ever there was a time to tackle the issue in principle, it is now, and that is what the motion is about: whether there is a case for renegotiation or for leaving the European Union. On renegotiation, we must establish the fact in line with the wishes of the people of this country—not because the Whips have said, “You’ve got to do this, that and the other” or, with great respect, because the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary have said so, but because we have a sacred trust, as elected Members of this House, to do what is right, in the interests of the British people as we see it for our constituents, and in the national interest. This is exactly that issue tonight.

The Prime Minister has given two speeches over the past year or so—one was about rebuilding trust in politics, and the other was about a European policy that we can believe in. I strongly recommend that people tonight, tomorrow or at some point read those speeches again and ask themselves, “What is going on in this debate today?” We know that the Whips have been strongly at work, but I had all that over Maastricht, we have had it over the years and it becomes something that we have to get used to. The reality is that we are doing the right thing for the right reason. That is the point.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he not think that, because the debate has been generated by an e-petition, because it has been made possible by the Backbench Business Committee and because it is an issue that does not divide Members along party lines, it is totally wrong for both party leaders to apply the three-line Whip?

[Mr Cash]

I absolutely agree. In fact, I think that three parties are involved, and the point applies to all of them.

I should like to return to the Prime Minister’s statement today and to test it against what has been going on. He said to us: “Members of my party fought the last election committed to three things,” including, “stopping the passage of further powers to the EU.” The Foreign Secretary, in his article in The Daily Telegraph the day before yesterday, said that he objected to the Lisbon treaty, and he will remember that he, I and many Conservative Members fought, united together, against it line by line—every aspect of it—and fought for a referendum. Yet, we have been watching the implementation of further powers—I do not want to get into the semantics or legal niceties of the word “powers”, because I know them as well as anybody else in the House—and every aspect of that Lisbon treaty day in, day out, and many of the problems that we are now experiencing are a result of its implementation.

The Prime Minister went on to say that we have instituted “a referendum lock to require a referendum, by law, for…such transfer of powers”, and I have a ten-minute rule Bill on that tomorrow. It would reverse section 4 of the European Union Act 2011, which I opposed on the Floor of the House. I see the Foreign Secretary smiling, because he knows what I am going to say. The real test, as I said to the Prime Minister during his statement, is about fundamental change—constitutional, political and economic. That is the test that needs to be applied, and it was endorsed—by the way—by the Lords Constitution Committee only last year.

Fiscal union, of which I shall explain more tomorrow, is such a fundamental change, but the Government quite deliberately ensured through section 4(4)(b) of the 2011 Act that there would be no referendum when the provision in question applied, in their terms, only to the eurozone and not to us directly. At the very time when we were being told that, however, I and others objected because we felt that such a provision would affect us enormously. We were told that it would not, but now we are told day in, day out how much it does affect us, and that therefore we must not do what we are doing tonight, for the very simple reason that, somehow or other, it will undermine our economic activity with the European Union. That is absolute rubbish. The reason why we are in such difficulties with deficit reduction is that there is no growth, and there is no growth because 50% of all our economic laws come from Europe. It also accounts for 40% of our trade, a point that the Foreign Secretary made, but the fact is that we have a massive trade deficit, as I have already described.

The EU is a failed project. It is an undemocratic project. This vote—this motion—is in the national interest, because it is for democracy, for trust in politics and for the integrity of this House.