I will not give way for a moment, but I will later on.
No institution can survive without the people’s support, and the EU that will emerge from the eurozone crisis may look very different from the EU before the crisis. Every country in the EU will have to make potentially fundamental choices about their place in Europe as a result, and the future shape of Europe for decades will be determined by those choices. But whatever the outcome of the crisis, the EU needs reform if it is to be democratically sustainable for all its members, which it will not be if ever-greater centralisation sucks ever more powers from its member states. As the Dutch Government’s recent report stated,
“the time of ‘ever closer union’ in every possible…area is behind us”.
They are right.
Our policy is therefore to seek reform so that the EU can be more competitive and flexible for the modern age, so that powers can come back to the countries of the European Union, and so that national Parliaments—the indispensible vessels of democracy—can have a more powerful role and then put the decision in the hands of the British people, as this Bill would do.