European Union Bill

With respect, the hon. Gentleman is not being fair to our officials, who undertake the arduous task of negotiating the treaties or agreements that affect Britain. If he travelled widely on the continent as I do—and I am sure that he does, too—he would find that in capital after capital, people think that the EU is, if not a British plot, an Anglo-Saxon hymn to free trade. Again and again, in Berlin, Madrid and Paris, I have had to defend the EU and the European Court of Justice, because the vast majority of rulings in the ECJ uphold open and free trade, and slap down the protectionist instincts of many EU member states.