European Union Bill

My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) has performed a significant service for us today, because I believe this is the first time since the 1970s that we have had a discussion here about whether the British people should be allowed to decide how they are governed. I believe that we should be an independent country, trading with Europe but governing ourselves. More than that, however, I believe that it is up to the British people to decide how they are governed. Do they prefer to be governed, and have their laws made, by this House, so that they can throw out the people involved if they do not like how those laws are made, or by a qualified majority including 26 other countries? Do they prefer to have those countries decide their laws for them, and to pay £10 billion a year for the privilege? That question is subject to conditions in the new clause, but for the first time since the 1970s, that issue of principle is before us for debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) put it very well earlier in the Committee stage, when he said that for a long time—since the late 1980s, I think he said—the British people had had a settled view about the European Union. They thought, ““This far but no further.”” Yet there is a logical inconsistency in that position, because the process began in the late '80s by which we had the Single European Act, then the Maastricht treaty, then the treaty of Amsterdam, then the treaty of Nice, then the proposed European constitution that the Labour Government then re-described as the treaty of Lisbon. Each and every one of those treaties has given more and more power to the EU. I believe it is true that by the late '80s or early '90s the settled view of the British people was that we had gone quite far enough and that they did not want to go any further, yet they keep on being dragged further and further. One reason why there is a growing detachment between the people and politicians, of which I would say the expenses issue was a mere symptom, is that year after year the British people hear their politicians—particularly those on the Conservative Benches—tell them that they are Eurosceptics. Those politicians say, ““We don't support all these transfers of power to Europe. We want to get power back, and we want more power here in Britain.”” They tell people that we can be in Europe but not run by Europe, and they suggest that Europe is coming round to our way, that the British agenda is winning and that there is compromise. The truth, however, is that the House and the country want only to decide whether or not to be part of what is happening. New clause 11 gives us a chance to vote on that, subject to conditions. Many Government Members describe themselves as Eurosceptics. I first met the Minister in October 1992 at a dinner at Southampton university, at the invitation, I believe, of my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns). The Minister was sitting between me and a friend over the water, as I shall describe Mr Hannan, who believes so strongly in the European issue that he also believes we should be able decide to abolish the Parliament that pays his salary. That evening, the talk was of the Danish no vote and of a motion before the House of Commons that called for a fresh start in Europe. I am pleased to say that the day after that conversation, the Minister, whom I congratulate on eventually becoming Minister for Europe, signed that motion. Eighteen or so years later, our constituents now ask, ““Where is that fresh start in Europe?”” They want to decide how our country is governed, and it surely their right to do so.