§ Mrs. Teresa Gorman (Billericay)I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the holding of a referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union.The question I propose is whether we should renegotiate our membership, limiting it to trading arrangements, or pursue full integration, probably with a single currency. The Bill does not advocate leaving Europe.In another place on Friday, quite by coincidence, the noble Lord Pearson, with cross-party support, will propose the repeal of section 2 of the treaty of Rome—which, incidentally, would allow renegotiation to take place.
It is 22 years since the last referendum on this subject, and a great deal of water has gone under the bridge since then. The issues that concern us today were not even mentioned then. Then it was about trade, but today the issues are far more political, and impinge far more on the everyday lives of our constituents. Indeed, at the weekend Mr. Santer was putting forward sweeping proposals for social changes and intervention, which would affect the matters on which the election will be fought—health, education and so on.
Parliament is no longer sovereign as it once was. However the small print of Rome was written, it was not explained in detail to the British people at the time, and now the chickens are coming home to roost.
Everywhere I go in my constituency of Billericay—which now includes a large slice of Basildon, incidentally—in the pubs and clubs, the supermarkets and the high street, people do not complain to me about the health service—they think it is splendid. Nor do they complain about the schools—they are excellent. They are delighted that, for example, more children will be able to go to nursery school. The questions they all ask me are, "What are you going to do about Europe? When are we going to get a referendum?" They see a referendum as the only way in which they can have a say on matters they read about in newspapers and see on television every day.
Hardly a week goes by without some row between us and Europe over new legislation that we apparently did not expect and apparently do not want, so it appears very much as though we are at odds with those who are supposed to be our partners. At my local fish and chip shop, constituents see a large banner saying, "Save British fish". They have to go to the nearest supermarket for their meat, because the local butcher—a shop that had been there for 150 years—was closed down because of all the new regulations, which literally prevented him from using his old chopping block and the knives that his father and grandfather had used. The butcher could not afford the new regulations—[Interruption.]
§ Madam SpeakerOrder. The House will come to order and hear the hon. Lady properly. Any hon. Member who wants to oppose the Bill can do so, but there is a time to do so, and it is not while the hon. Lady is speaking.
§ Mrs. GormanMany of the regulations originate in European directives, and they are killing small enterprises. 742 The list goes on and on. My constituents bitterly resent that, but they feel impotent to do anything about it. Most of the time, we seem to be at daggers drawn with people we call our partners. My constituents know no other way of reasserting what they consider to be the rights of the British people except to say, "Can we have a referendum to put our point of view across?" [Interruption.]
This is not a party political, but a national, issue. I must tell the hon. Members on the Opposition Benches who are busy chortling that many people have told me that they are normally Labour voters but will vote for me because I stick up for them on the European issue and put their point of view across. Those hon. Gentlemen may be laughing on the other side of their faces when, at the next election, Basildon again declares its results early and returns a Conservative Member of Parliament.
In a recent poll carried out by a national newspaper in my constituency, 64 per cent. of people said that they would totally oppose giving up the pound, and others said that they would like to get out of Europe altogether—my Bill does not advocate that. There has been a massive shift in public opinion.
One constituent, putting it his own way, said, "Who wants pockets full of bottle tops instead of good old British money?" [Interruption.] Hon. Members may laugh, but the new currency would mean 15 new pieces of paper and metal, none of which would equate to the current values of coins and notes. People would have to learn a new financial language. When we introduced decimalisation, people had a lot of trouble with that—Chancellors might not have done, but the people did. We will have even more trouble if we go ahead with this scheme.
Sometimes it behoves the people who are barracking or chortling away on the Opposition Benches to remember that these grandiose schemes boil down to their effects on the lives of ordinary people. The utopian ideas of Brussels sometimes end up as Essex man's bankruptcy petition. The idea that a single currency is the only way in which European trade can proceed is totally absurd. I hope that we can gain a commitment that we will not go ahead with that silly idea.
The views of most hon. Members are well known, especially to you, Madam Speaker, because you have to call us in the few European debates we have; but we do not know what the bulk of our 58 million constituents think about Europe these days. We are in the run-up to a general election and all parties are setting out their stalls, but there are very few discussions about Europe, which is the issue that I know that my constituents want me to bring to the attention of the House.
We cannot run away from or keep a lid on the issue of Europe. A referendum may not be ideal, but it is the only way I know of finding out what people want and giving them that outlet. When all the parties have similar views on Europe, Dicey tells us that extremist parties arise. He says that, to solve the problem, we should have a referendum, and that is what I am calling for today.
§ Madam SpeakerI call Mr. Denis MacShane to oppose.
§ Mr. Denis MacShane (Rotherham)Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. [HON. MEMBERS: "Now you've had it."] Forgive me, Madam Speaker.
I do not think that, in pure terms, the hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) will find much opposition to her Bill, because for some time it has been the policy of the Labour party and of the official Conservative party to put to the people the question of continued membership of the European Union or the specific question of a single currency. [HON. MEMBERS: "That is not the same thing."] It is not the same thing at all, but were that simply the technical debate before us, the Bill would not be worth opposing.
It is a paradox that the hon. Lady, in defending the sovereignty of Parliament, is proposing to remove from Parliament its sovereignty to decide a great question. It is also perhaps a paradox that she, who has often gone through the Division Lobbies in her long years as the hon. Member for Billericay to remove from many British people—from local authorities, civil society organisations, trade unions and others—the right to decide for themselves in various areas of their lives and activities, should now complain that Britain has to share some of its power with our partner nations in Europe.
The hon. Lady is, however, an adornment to the House, and I think that it is fair to say that we all love her—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—but she is about to hear the iron maiden of truth clamping around her farrago of fantasy and misleading information. She may be the chirping chimpanzee presenting the Bill, but behind her are organ grinders with a deeper purpose.
The motion concerns not only a technical debate on a referendum: it is the opening shot of a campaign to get Britain out of Europe. I wish that every business man and every ally of our country was here today, so that they could understand the deep, persistent and unbridgeable divisions in the Conservative party. At home and abroad, the Conservative party is seen as profoundly anti-European.
I am not interested in Tory divisions. We shall see whether the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) and the right hon. Members for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) and for Kingston upon Thames (Mr. Lamont), all of whom are in the withdrawalist camp, come to vote today, and whether members of the Cabinet who are busy issuing anti-European manifestos turn up to join them.
In the few minutes left, I want to put a positive case for Europe, because I believe that continued British membership of the European Union is vital for our trade and security, and for consolidating democracy. As a great trading country, we sell more to France than to all the Commonwealth countries put together. We sell more to the Netherlands than to Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and China put together. Every pound of inward investment into the United Kingdom, such as the Nissan jobs announced yesterday, comes because we are part of the world's biggest trading community.
To the east of the Community, we have an enormous new opportunity as countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Hungary post east Asian levels of growth. They are clamouring to join the Europe from 744 which the hon. Member for Billericay, and her referendum supporters such as James Goldsmith, wish us to become semi-detached.
It is no coincidence that the leaders of the new democracies in eastern Europe, as has been said by Gyula Horn, the Prime Minister of Hungary, are prepared to alter their judicial, legal and social norms to become part of the EU. They understand that pooling sovereignty and sharing power are essential prerequisites for the new international global economic order. We are doing that through the World Trade Organisation, and it is sheer fantasy to imagine that we can start to withdraw from the EU and have an a la carte, pick-and-choose Europe. We may pick the things we want; the rest of Europe will pick what they want, or do not want from us.
Britain has always been an open, free-trading, welcoming nation, and we cannot turn from that path. The hon. Member for Billericay and I had a discussion on the BBC yesterday. She asked whether the British people really wanted to take orders from people with foreign-sounding names. She should be careful about that, because among the Cabinet, among the fathers and grandfathers of the Cabinet, and among Opposition Members, there are plenty of foreign names. The best of the British tradition has been when we have been open to every possible foreign influence.
The problem is only in Britain. As hon. Members tramp around Europe, as many of us do, we find that of course there is a debate on economic and monetary union and the technical modalities, on reform of the common agricultural policy and on security and immigration policy. However, everyone asks me how Britain can have open borders with Ireland, a sovereign republic with which we have many differences, when we put up so many obstacles to people visiting from France or Germany.
It is only in Parliament that we hear the rising clamour for withdrawal. The hon. Member for Billericay has many friends in the media; much of the press is on her side. People who put the positive case sometimes have difficulty in getting their voices heard. Even some of the pro-European newspapers are like foxes running from covert to covert, trying to find a policy on which to settle.
However, there are many Government and Opposition Members who will not allow the distortions and dishonesties of Goldsmith and his followers to go unchallenged. Our country has seen that tradition before: the tradition of hostility to faraway places of which we know little, and foreign-sounding people we do not like; of isolationism; of appeasing forces operating from some hacienda or bunker that tell us what to do.
I believe that the House, and the country, will not have that. That is why I am not frightened of a referendum or of the forthcoming general election, in which the party that stands clearly for a positive Britain in Europe will win handsomely, and the party that is divided, unsure, isolationist and frightened of Europe will be defeated.
Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 19 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business):—
The House proceeded to a Division.
SIR TEDDY TAYLOR and MR. BILL WALKER were appointed Tellers for the Ayes but no Member being willing to act as Teller for the Noes, MADAM SPEAKER declared that the Ayes had it.
745 Bill ordered to be brought in by Mrs. Teresa Gorman, Mr. David Trimble, Mr. Tony Benn, Sir Teddy Taylor, Mr. Christopher Gill, Mr. Austin Mitchell, Mr. Edward Leigh, Sir Richard Body, Mr. Rupert Allason, Mr. Graham Riddick, Mr. Richard Shepherd and Mr. John Wilkinson.