I shall try to be as brief as possible. It is traditional to congratulate the winner of the private Members’ ballot, and I am happy to do that, although speaking as a Member who has been here for 21 years, I have never even come in the top 20. I say that with no rancour and no bitterness. I am certain that the Bill will obtain its Second Reading today, and will sail through Committee—although after that, who knows? The Bill will do so without my support, so let me briefly say why.
The fact that the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) has chosen a controversial subject should not be made into an issue for consideration. Sometimes MPs bring in private Members’ Bills and try to build a good deal of consensus behind them, so that their proposers can get them through. There are plenty of other issues, however. Provisions on capital punishment and abortion, for example, started off as private Members’ Bills, and the Hunting Act 2004 started off as a private Member’s Bill. Whether the hon. Member for Stockton South will have such a smooth ride with his Bill, I do not know.
I will not support the Bill, although together with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) I do support a referendum. I hope to persuade our Front-Bench team —I am perhaps a bit more optimistic on this than my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East—to adopt a rational position on the reform of the EU, eventually resulting in a referendum for the British people to decide. After all, we have only ever had one referendum on this subject, and it was provided by a Labour Government.
I will not support the Bill, first, because it is defective and incompatible with the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. I do not support it, secondly, because it will never be implemented. If, after 2015, there is a majority Tory Government, they are certain to change course and bring forward a different proposal—as would any other majority Government. If there is a coalition Government, we will be back exactly where we are today. Another reason is that the heart of this Bill is fruit-cake therapy for Tories, in an attempt to provide a talisman against UKIP. That is what drives this issue. A more rational, reasonable and durable approach is required.
This is an attempt to replicate Harold Wilson’s ultimately successful strategy of the early ’70s, but Harold Wilson was a far wilier operator than this Prime Minister. He devised the dissenting Ministers campaign and the referendum campaign principally to reconcile the deep divisions within the Labour party at the time and to avert a destructive split, and that was successful for nearly 10 years, but it did not prevent it. As much as anything, it was the split on the left in British politics that resulted in the hegemony of the Conservative party throughout the ’80s. The split did take place, and it took another 15 years to recover from it.
We are dealing here with fundamental political forces. The difference now is that the split is on the right of British politics. I fully expect this Bill to come back on Report in November, and I will be fascinated to see how it plays out after that.
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