European Affairs

William Cash Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am not a lawyer, so it is not a question of the basis on which I say it is legally binding, but there has been a plethora of qualified legal opinion supporting the view that it is a legally binding decision. Registering it at the United Nations records it as a treaty-status international law obligation. The document will be taken into account by the European Court of Justice, whose own decisions in the Rottmann case have established that it must have regard to interpretative decisions by Heads of State and Governments. The document itself makes it clear that it is legally binding.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Hammond]

I am going to make a little progress.

Let me recall what we set out to achieve and what has been delivered. First, we set out to protect British jobs and ensure a level playing field in Europe for British business, because the creation of the eurozone and the greater level of co-ordination needed between eurozone countries created a very real risk either that non-Eurozone countries such as Britain would be dragged into integration that we do not need and do not want, or that our businesses would suffer discrimination because of our decision to retain our own currency. So alongside the crucial exemption from steps of further integration, we needed to negotiate clear safeguards for the pound, the exemption of British taxpayers from eurozone bailouts, protection against discrimination for Britain’s world-leading financial services industry, a clear role for the Bank of England, and a clear commitment that we will have a full say in the functioning of the single market while not being part of the single currency. This deal delivers all those demands in a legally binding agreement, underpinned by the commitment by all EU member states to enshrine those UK safeguards in treaty change.

[Sir William Cash]

rose—

[Mr Hammond]

I thought my hon. Friend might take his cue from my using the words “legally binding” again.

[Sir William Cash]

But what the Foreign Secretary is not doing is using other words that are part of this package—not only “legally binding” but “irreversible”. As he knows, the question of whether this is irreversible is highly contentious. It is clear from the evidence that has been received, and indeed from the European Scrutiny Committee’s report, that it is not irreversible.

[Mr Hammond]

I have to disagree with my hon. Friend. The decision is irreversible unless Britain chooses to allow it to be reversed, because it could be reversed only by all 28 member states agreeing. I can assure him that, certainly for as long as this Government are in office, Britain will never agree to that happening.

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[Hilary Benn]

I agree completely with my hon. Friend. I have just tried to demonstrate to the House the benefit that working with our European allies in trying to be a force for good in the world has brought. I was just in the process of saying that Syria is a terrible example of the world’s collective failure. Like the Foreign Secretary, in his comments at Foreign and Commonwealth Office questions on Tuesday, we hope very much that the ceasefire will be implemented and upheld. However, that really depends on Russia, hence the point that I was making earlier.

What every single one of these examples teaches us is that we need stronger, not weaker, international co-operation. At this moment in this century, it would be extraordinary folly for our country to turn its back on this vital international alliance if we wished to help shape world events. That is why Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary-General of NATO, said:

“Britain is a global player and a strong EU will also make sure that NATO has a strong partner in the European Union when we are facing the same security threats”.

[Sir William Cash]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Hilary Benn]

I will give way one more time, but then make progress because other Members want to speak.

[Sir William Cash]

On the broader foreign policy question in relation to Russia and all that, would the shadow Foreign Secretary like to comment on whether he thinks the Budapest agreement in the 1990s was a good idea?

[Hilary Benn]

To be perfectly honest, I am less interested in what happened in the 1990s. I am more interested in what is going to happen in 2016, which is the big decision that the British people will have to take. I argue that our national security is served by our membership of both the EU and NATO. Co-operation across Europe is essential if we are to deal with terrorist threats. The European arrest warrant is a really good example of that. The case of the failed 21 July 2005 bomber who was returned here from Rome, where he had sought to escape British justice, demonstrates the benefit of working with our allies. That is why the director of Europol, Rob Wainwright, warned recently that British exit would

“make Britain’s job harder to fight crime and terrorism because it will not have the same access to very well developed European cooperation mechanisms that it currently has today”.

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[Alex Salmond]

The hon. Gentleman allows me to say it is exactly the sort of area we want to debate, because we want to see a Europe that builds recovery, not, as he puts it, that enforces penury. That is exactly the sort of argument for why we want to change the focus of Europe in terms of how it achieves things.

[Sir William Cash]

rose—

[Alex Salmond]

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I shall certainly give way to him slightly later.

I wanted to reflect on one point where I have particular experience and I think a bit of honesty is called for. I was the First Minister who lost a referendum and then resigned the next day. I did that because I do not think it is credible for a First Minister or Prime Minister to continue in office in these circumstances. I do not believe the Prime Minister—and I do not think probably the majority of his party and certainly of the country believes him—when he says he would sail on in office with a negative vote, to negotiate out of the EU, after telling people it was essential to the security and prosperity of the country, as he put it last week, for us to be in it.

There is evidence to suggest the Prime Minister has form on these matters. On 17 September 2014 he said in a statement that the question in the Scottish referendum was not about his future, but was about the future of Scotland and that he would continue regardless of the result, but by 28 September—11 days later—he confided to Scotland on Sunday the following:

“If the vote had been for Scotland to have left the UK, I genuinely would have been heartbroken. I would have felt winded and wounded. Emotionally, one would have thought, ‘I’m so saddened by this. I find it difficult to go on’.”

By “difficult to go on” I think he meant in office rather than anything more substantial.

That attitude has been confirmed by a number of sources since. I suspect that the idea that a Prime Minister could continue in office having lost such a vote is, to coin a phrase, “for the birds”, which is exactly why the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) is right in one bit of his apparent calculation: that an opening would allow a new Prime Minister, as he puts it, to negotiate our way back into some sort of European construct on better terms. The second half of that probably is “for the birds”, but at least in the first half about a vacancy being available the hon. Gentleman’s calculation may be right. I think the Prime Minister should own up, because I think his current position lacks some degree of credibility.

The nature of this debate is already having big impacts on politics. Earlier this week, while people in this place were understandably fixed on the contest between the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip and the Prime Minister in the European debate, there was the settlement of the Scottish financial position. Huge tribute should be paid to the First Minister of Scotland and the Deputy First Minister, and indeed to those on all sides of the negotiating team, on bringing that settlement about. But I wondered about the rapid change in position that was taking place, where only a couple of weeks ago the Treasury position was to arrange a £7 billion reduction from Scotland’s finances, which became last week £3.5 billion, £2.5 billion earlier this week, and then ended up at zero by Tuesday afternoon. I am prepared to suggest that one reason why that change of heart may well have come about is that if it had not come about—[Interruption.] The Foreign Secretary says there was no change: believe me, the dogs in the street in Scotland know there was a substantial change over the last few weeks, and one reason why it may have come about, I suspect, is that if the Prime Minister was in the position of not being able to deliver his pre-referendum promises or vows to Scotland, he would perhaps find it difficult to sustain the argument that 27 other European leaders might be delivering their pre-referendum vows to him. We are already seeing aspects of this debate having a very substantial influence on politics.

I asked the Foreign Secretary earlier about the circumstances that would arise if the vote went for out and when article 50 would be invoked, and I have been reading the Library paper in preparation on exactly that issue. The Library paper suggests that the likely formulation would be that there would be a vote in this Chamber before the Government invoked the position, but the Government could say it was an Executive decision and just go ahead anyway. What it then goes on to argue is of great importance.

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[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), because both of them have sought and achieved a level of debate that this subject certainly deserves. I wish to say something to my right hon. Friend, and I am sure he would agree with me on this. As he knows, I have utter admiration for his grandfather, being one who was born on 10 May 1940, when he assumed the prime ministership of this country and when Hitler invaded Holland and France. However, many of Sir Winston Churchill’s pronouncements on the issue of Europe changed as time progressed. In particular, he said at one point, much later than 1948, that we should be “associated but not absorbed”. The movements that were taking place and which were apparent to Sir Anthony Eden and to others in the late 1940s and early 1950s did have a significant impact on the thinking of our great, great former Prime Minister Sir Winston himself. In saying that we should be associated but not absorbed, he had understood that there were movements afoot that were not in the interests of the United Kingdom.

Sir Winston also said that we should tell the truth to the British people. He went on to make it clear that what he meant by that was that the British people will follow you if you tell them that truth. Sadly, I believe that what has been happening in the recent months, and in the whole of this debate, is just as I indicated in my response to the Prime Minister’s statement on 3 February, when I said that he was bypassing not only his promises, but his principles. I also said that I thought there was a problem with this expression “legally binding and irreversible” and with the stitch-up, as I put it, with respect to the political decision that I anticipated would be taken in a few days’ time and which of course was taken on 10 February. I thought this expression “legally binding and irreversible” would lead on 23 June, which has turned out to be the referendum date, to something on which the voters would not be able to rely. It is strong words to say that I believe the voter is already being cheated in this respect.

I say that for this reason, and with prudence and with care: right at the heart of this is voters’ trust. I also said that on 3 February. The truth is that, for all the arguments that have developed over these words “legally binding and irreversible”, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary very carefully avoided using the word “irreversible”. He mentioned “legally binding”. Indeed, the conclusions to the summit on 17 to 18 February specifically referred to “legally binding” and specifically did not refer to the word “irreversible”. There is a good reason for that, as we have said on numerous occasions in the European Scrutiny Committee. We have said it in our reports recently and in our cross-examination of the Foreign Secretary the other day. This is all about voter trust.

Let us take as an example the removal of the words “ever-closer union” in respect of the United Kingdom. As I had to point out to the Foreign Secretary, that is not in the preamble; it is in article 1 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Therefore, any removal requires treaty change, but we are not being given treaty change. We are relying on an international agreement. I will not say that such an agreement does not have a certain legal character, but it does not bind the European Court of Justice. It does not guarantee that other member states may veto any treaty change that might follow. It also does not guarantee what the European Court of Justice may say about it. It does not take into account the fact that other states will be holding referendums on this subject, of which Ireland is one such example, the outcome of which cannot possibly be predicted—not as said by a Member of Parliament on the “Today” programme yesterday.

[Mr Jackson]

Like many Conservative Members of Parliament, we wished the Prime Minister well as he went forward with negotiations. Obviously, we are very disappointed with the gossamer-thin substance of the agreement with which he came back a week or so ago. Is not the offence compounded by the fact that we were led to believe in the Bloomberg speech in January 2013 that we were looking at a fundamental renegotiation of our relationship with the European Union, and that clearly and sadly has not happened?

[Sir William Cash]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. In fact, I made that very point on 3 February in my response to the Prime Minister’s statement. The Prime Minister also said that our democracy in our Westminster Parliament was the root of our freedom of choice—that was the essence of what he was saying. I also have fears about the framework of this agreement and the developments by successive Governments in successive treaties. For example, I voted yes in 1975. While I pursued the Government and harried them over the Maastricht rebellion, the situation changed dramatically when the Maastricht treaty was brought into being.

[Alex Salmond]

I know that some of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues are less surprised than I am, but am I right in hearing that he voted yes in 1975? What measure of responsibility does he take for all that has happened since?

[Sir William Cash]

Very little. As I have said, these were decisions that were taken in 1972 on the basis of a White Paper, which said that we would always retain a veto. That is the difference. In fact, it has been whittled away by successive Governments and I have opposed them from the moment that I saw the Maastricht treaty to the present day, as the right hon. Gentleman knows only too well.

I want to go back to this problem of voter trust. The current Eurobarometer poll suggests a minus 60 factor in trust throughout the whole of Europe. Only 43% turn out in the European parliamentary elections. There is no connection between the citizen and the European Union. This is not about Europe. Many of us on the Conservative Benches love Europe. As someone who has two Spanish grandsons, one Spanish granddaughter, a Greek granddaughter, a daughter born in France, and a son once married to an Italian, I simply say that we do not have to be anti-European to be pro-democracy. That is a very powerful and important point for us all to bear in mind.

I am deeply worried about this refusal to engage with this word “irreversible.” It cannot be guaranteed. It is like buying a shiny second-hand car on a post-dated cheque with a dud guarantee. That is what we are being offered on 23 June. Unless the voter knows that they are actually going to get what the Foreign Secretary described as the “whole package”, and that they can be guaranteed that it will be given and that it will come into effect, they have no reason to have any confidence in answering the question of whether to remain in Europe or to leave. That is a severe indictment, which is why I say that the Government are effectively cheating the voter on that day.

There is also the issue about the democracy of this country. We agreed in our vote in 1972, and in subsequent accession treaties and other treaties that were added into the European Communities Act 1972, that we would voluntarily accept this as a diminution of our sovereignty in the sense that it was being put through the parliamentary system. The other day, the Prime Minister referred to an illusion of sovereignty. I do not wish to elaborate on that other than to say that it is not an illusion. Sovereignty is about the right of the people to choose, in general elections, the kind of laws under which they wish to be governed. In this House of Commons, it is not illusion. It is a fact as well as being a question of jurisprudence. That is why it is so important. People fought and died—as my own father died in the last war—fighting for the right of the British people to resist tyranny. It is a great mistake to talk about sovereignty in terms of an illusion.

There is also the question of how much influence we actually have in the European Union. I could give some further description of the voting system, but much of what happens is decided in smoke-filled rooms and not by voting itself.

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[Mr McFadden]

I have looked at some of the trade agreements negotiated between individual countries and China, and I recommend that the hon. Gentleman does too. Those trade agreements often allow complete and free access for the Chinese end of the operation, with severely limited and tariff-imposed access for the smaller country, so I disagree with the view that we should have a choice between trading with the rest of the world and trading with the EU. We should do both.

[Sir William Cash]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr McFadden]

Given the time limit, I shall make progress, if I may.

Another issue underlying the question on the ballot paper, and to which my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary referred, is that of employment rights. The EU is not just a trading relationship or a market. There is a social Europe aspect. Six million workers in the UK have gained new or enhanced rights to paid holidays. Around 400,000 part-time workers, most of them women and many of them low-paid, gained improved pay and conditions when equal treatment rights were introduced. I repeat the point I made in my question to my right hon. Friend. When people attack red tape and bureaucracy from the EU, it is very often those things that they mean—the right to decency at work. As my right hon. Friend said, parents’ right to enjoy time with their newborn baby is not needless bureaucracy. This is part of a decent, civilised economy. That, too, is on the ballot paper when the issue is debated.

Then I come to the question raised most eloquently by the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex—the question of security. I will not repeat in a less eloquent manner the argument that he made. We ignore at our peril the achievements of peace that the European Union has helped to guarantee. This is an argument not just of interests, but of values. We should not underestimate the importance of resolving conflicts peacefully and of common commitments to democracy, human rights and respect for one another’s borders. Compare those with the way that conflicts in Europe were resolved before the European Union was in place. Of course, the European Union is not perfect. I have served on the Council of Ministers and the patience even of a pro-European like me can be tested by several hours in the Social Affairs Council, with the headphones on, but I always stopped to check myself and say however frustrating this might be, compared with the way that decisions used to be reached or conflicts used to be resolved in Europe, it is a great improvement.

On security, we have to ask ourselves who outside the European Union would be pleased to see a British exit or pleased to see a wider break-up of the European Union. The answer most clearly is President Putin. No one would be more pleased than him to see our security compromised in that way.

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[Mr Jenkin]

We should be ready to recognise the EU institutions our continent has inherited as so last century, but I was going on to say that we must never forget the forces of history and the tragic errors of the past that have shaped the present on our continent, although we must also have the courage to embrace the change in our society and in the world that will otherwise leave us stranded with and clinging to outdated ideas and constructs. Our main contention is exactly that; the EU is an outdated construct.

[Sir William Cash]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if we remain we would in effect be in the second tier of a two-tier Europe dominated by other countries?

[Mr Jenkin]

That is a whole new argument, which I accept, but I am not going there now.

The referendum represents not just a turning point in itself, but just one point on a trend that is increasingly paralysing our entire continent, the unity of which is being shattered by the very institution that was intended to unite it. Let us look at the eurozone and at the Schengen free travel area and the migration crisis. Whereas in 1975 my party, myself included, was enthusiastic for membership of the European Communities, today my party—and, I believe, my country—knows that the world is utterly different.

Today, the strongest arguments for remaining appear to be ones saying that we are determined not to participate in the three main purposes of the EU: we will not join the euro, we will not join the Schengen free travel area and we will not be in a political union. What is the point of our being in this arrangement when we are so opposed to its principal purposes?

I must say that we have heard a certain amount of this debate before, as the Minister for Europe will recognise. Much of it is familiar from the Maastricht debates 20 years ago. We were told that we had opt-outs, but the problem is that they do not always work. We were told that about the social chapter, but we were overruled by the European Court of Justice on the working time directive. We were told then, “Europe is changing”, and, “It’s all going our way.” I cannot believe I have heard it again, but the Foreign Secretary actually said today:

“National where possible, Europe where necessary.”

John Major regarded that—subsidiarity—as his principal triumph, which was going to reverse the centralising tendencies of the European Court of Justice. We were told we would always be leading in Europe. Today, the Foreign Secretary said we would “fight” with “like-minded…states” and be

“leading…in a reformed EU”.

We have heard all this before—these are the same deceits—to persuade people to support something that we do not really want. We were told that if we vetoed Maastricht, it would be a “leap in the dark”. What did the Foreign Secretary say today? He said leaving would be a “leap in the dark”. The giveaway this afternoon was when he said:

“Of course there is more to do”.

You bet! If we stay in the European Union, there is going to be a lot more to do, because this agreement is of course so inconsequential, even if it were irreversible and legally binding.

What happens if we vote to remain? That is the question the Government need to answer. What will happen? Last time, we were told before the referendum that there would be

“no loss of essential national sovereignty”.

The word “essential” was useful, because it denuded that phrase of its meaning. We have the same weasel words coming from the Law Officers today.

If the British people are deceived again and we vote to remain, we will have resolved nothing. We will be back in the Chamber in five or seven years’ time either to demand another referendum or deciding just to get out. That is the trend: we will be facing the same problems and we will be afflicted by the same conflicts with our European partners, although by then the problems will be worse. I believe that leaving the European Union is the safer choice. Our security depends on NATO and our alliances, our own people and our resources, and working with allies. The idea that we can work with allies only if we stay in the European Union is yet another deceit being visited on the British people.

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[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

It is always very daunting to follow the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg). There has been much talk today about whether sovereignty is an illusion. I know that the notion of parliamentary sovereignty is one that many hon. Members for English constituencies hold dear. I want to address that issue of sovereignty, and to make a plea for respect for the different constitutional tradition in Scotland in relation to sovereignty.

After his statement on Monday, I asked the Prime Minister to confirm whether it was his intention to unveil a British sovereignty Bill in the next few days, as has been widely reported, and what provision he would make in the Bill to recognise that the principle of unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle that has no counterpart in Scottish constitutional law. He confirmed his view:

“We do have a sovereign Parliament…and I look forward to bringing forward some proposals in the coming days.”—[Official Report, 22 February 2016; Vol. 606, c. 53.]

We await his proposals with bated breath, but he did not address my comments about the difference between English and Scottish constitutional legal theory. I rather had the impression that he did not know what I was talking about. I do not mean that disrespectfully, because I am very well aware that he is a distinguished scholar with a first from Oxford, but I believe it is in PPE rather than in law.

Every lawyer with a Scots law degree knows that there is a tradition of the sovereignty of the people in Scotland. I know that that conflicts with the Diceyan tradition in England, but many distinguished Scottish jurists have put it on a very firm footing. They include Lord President Cooper in the well-known Scottish case of MacCormick v. the Lord Advocate in 1953 and, most recently, Lord Hope of Craighead in his dicta on a case about the Hunting Act 2004, Jackson v. the Attorney General. Lord Hope said that

“Parliamentary sovereignty is no longer, if it ever was, absolute… It is no longer right to say that its freedom to legislate admits of no qualification whatever. Step by step, gradually but surely, the English principle of the absolute legislative sovereignty of Parliament which Dicey derived from Coke and Blackstone is being qualified…The rule of law enforced by the courts is the ultimate controlling factor on which our constitution is based.”

[Sir William Cash]

May I refer the hon. and learned Lady to chapter 12 of “The Rule of Law” by the late Lord Justice Bingham, in which he severely criticises other members of the Supreme Court for taking what he would describe as a wrong view of the whole question of sovereignty?

[Joanna Cherry]

I am very well aware of Lord Bingham’s opinion of the views expressed in the Jackson case. I am not saying they are binding precedents—they are opinions. My point is that the opinion of Lord Hope of Craighead in Jackson and of Lord President Cooper in the 1953 case are very well founded in Scottish historical tradition.

We heard much in the Chamber last year about Magna Carta, which was signed at Runnymede in 1215. Arbroath is Scotland’s Runnymede, and Scotland’s Magna Carta is the Declaration of Arbroath. It recognised that the people, not Parliament, are sovereign in Scotland. That is the difference between Scottish and English constitutional law, which is of long standing, and I ask the Government to reflect that in their Bill on British sovereignty.

The Declaration of Arbroath was a letter, written by the nobility of Scotland to the Pope in 1320, that asserted the nationhood of Scotland, our right to independence and the right of the Scottish people to choose their King—the people’s sovereignty. Most importantly, the Declaration of Arbroath said that the independence of Scotland was the prerogative of the Scottish people, rather than the King of Scots, and that the nobility—at that time, the nobility were, for these purposes, the people of Scotland—would choose someone else to be king if Robert the Bruce proved unfit in maintaining Scotland’s independence. That last point has been interpreted by many scholars as an early expression of the notion of popular sovereignty—that Government is contractual and that kings can be chosen by the community, rather than by God alone. We find that notion of popular sovereignty in other modern democracies that consider themselves to be governed by the rule of law, rather than parliamentary sovereignty. Of course, law can have many sources.

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[Mr Lidington]

The United Kingdom is the signatory to the European treaties, and therefore it is the UK Government who take the decision on whether to invoke article 50.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) raised important points about what he saw as security risks from people who had migrated to Germany crossing to the United Kingdom. My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) said, accurately, that we have some pretty effective security arrangements at our borders and that the record shows not only that the chief terrorist threat to the United Kingdom too often comes from British citizens, but that there have been terrorist incidents abroad that have been brought about by people who were British born and bred. In Germany, it takes eight to 10 years for someone to get citizenship, and they have to have a clean criminal record, pass an integration test and show that they have an independent source of income. It is probably because those tests are so rigorous that only 2.2% of refugees in Germany take German citizenship and get German passports. What we can and do do here is stop people, including EU citizens, at our borders and refuse entry to anyone about whom there is information of terrorist links. Some of my hon. Friends overlook the fact that our safeguards against terrorism are stronger precisely because we are party to the various European agreements on data sharing and information sharing, such as on passenger name records, which we would be outwith if we were to leave the European Union and were unable to negotiate some alternative arrangement.

The key question in deciding our position on membership is one my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) touched on: how will we be better able to control our destiny and influence for good the lives of the people whom we represent? The point that the leave campaigners must face is that the alternatives that we see—most notably Norway and Switzerland—are countries that, in order to get free trade and the single market, have had to accept not only all the EU regulations that govern those matters without any say or vote in determining them, but the free movement of people and a duty to contribute to the EU budget. That is not sovereignty, but kingship with a paper crown. It would not bring the power to shape European policy and co-operation for the benefit of the people whom we are sent here to represent from all parts of the United Kingdom.

What has dismayed me during this debate is that, apart from my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), there has been little attempt to describe what the alternative is that will somehow enable us to have all the things that we value about European Union membership with none of the things that may matter to other Governments around Europe and which we perhaps find irksome or troubling.

[Sir William Cash]

rose—

[Mr Lidington]

No, I will not give way.

I am bemused that some of my hon. Friends have managed to convince themselves of two propositions: that other European countries are at present engaged in what has been termed a “vindictive and spiteful” attempt to harm our interests or a conspiracy to do us down; and that those same Governments will rush to give us everything that we want with none of the downsides if only we vote to leave. That is a fanciful analysis of European politics today. If we accept that we want a single market, we must have the EU rules that go with it and the other costs, such as those that Norway and Switzerland have to pay today.

We are putting so much at risk at a time of real peril not just for this country but for the whole of the west. We face a massive economic challenge from global competition and digital technology; a challenge from transnational crime and global terrorism; the collapse of states in parts of Africa and the middle east, which has allowed terrorism, people trafficking and drug trafficking to flourish; and the challenge from a newly aggressive Russia in both eastern Europe and the middle east. No one country in Europe, not even the biggest, will be able to tackle those challenges on its own. That is why our key allies—not just those in Europe, but the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand—see the United Kingdom as stronger and more influential in the world as a leader in our own continent. I am dismayed by the insouciant attitude of those who want to leave to the risk that their campaign poses of the possible fragmentation of the west. It is truly shocking.

We need to have confidence in this country’s ability to lead and shape events in Europe, as we have done in creating the single market, in pioneering free trade deals, in organising a firm response through sanctions to Russian aggression in Ukraine and to Iran’s nuclear programme, and in defeating piracy in the Indian ocean.

The United Kingdom should be confident in our ability to work with allies in Europe and around the world. We should not see the two things as in any way contradictory. As we look to the future and face again the challenges of large-scale migration driven by terrorism, failed states, climate change and economic problems in much of the developing world, we need to work together with our partners and our allies, because none of us can tackle that on our own. We see the United Kingdom today as a European power with global interests and global influence. Those two aspects of this country are not contradictory; they complement one another. We need to go forward with the confidence and optimism that the United Kingdom can help make a better future not just for every family in this country but for all the nations of the wider European family. That is the case that I and my right hon. and hon. Friends will be putting to the country in the months to come.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered European affairs.