European Union Bill

I was honoured to be asked to add my name to the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). I, too, would like to celebrate his genius not only in drafting the clause, but in taking advice from the Clerks and outdoing the Government Front-Bench team in having such a long debate on the provision this evening. He has worked tirelessly to get this issue debated on the Floor of the House, and I would like to congratulate him. I am proud to say on behalf of my Kettering constituents that I am in favour of an in/out referendum and that if there were one, I would vote to leave the European Union. I have absolutely no doubt that if that issue were put to my constituents, a majority would vote to leave the EU. That would not necessarily always have been the case. Had there been a referendum 10 or 15 years ago, there might well have been a majority for staying in. I have no doubt that a majority of voters in the Kettering constituency would have voted to stay in the Common Market in the referendum of 1975. Now, however, people are so fed up with European issues and with the effect Europe is having on their country and their way of life that we have crossed over so that there would no longer be an overwhelming majority in favour of staying in. The majority would want to leave so that Britain can be a proud, self-confident nation once again, without having to pay a massive annual membership fee—soon rising to £10 billion a year—and without having to open our borders to all and sundry from across the European Union, allowing them to flood to these shores. Immigration is a European issue. It did not used to be, but it is now. People in my constituency and across the country are fed up with the numbers of people coming into our country from abroad and fed up with uncontrolled immigration from the European Union. Frankly, my Kettering voters feel let down by the political establishment that our being in the European Union should have been allowed to take over so many aspects of our lives.