I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am not the progenitor of the Whip, but I respect my wonderful party, which at last has found a voice to express those they represent. I think that the Labour Front Bench is in genuine difficulties over this matter, because it is a rejection of a movement and feeling that is now effective in the country. This has been too long coming: an unconscionable period of time. I made a famous prediction, which I regret to say did not come about, with the experience and arrogance of youth, and in a television studio in Birmingham announced that this common market racket would be over in 10 years. That is, of course, now 32 years ago.
I learned from that the tenacity with which a particular class of those who lead us have sought to control this issue. There is no defence of conversation within a nation, or anything. All the way through this, an elite in our political parties, which rises to the top, forms judgments and changes its judgments. Peter Shore wrote perhaps the most balanced speech, titled “A thousand years of British history”, when we knew nothing, rather like the other day in the Commons, about what the Government’s intentions were in joining. That speech asks a series of questions. We know nothing about this. We wonder. We have to wait. The Conservatives also knew nothing about it and did not have to wait. So in the end they were great supporters of our joining what was called the common market. The Library—