Many other organisations have benefited from the programme, some of which were mentioned by the hon. Member for Daventry. Taxpayers’ money is being given to people such as Jacques Delors, who has a very narrow interpretation of what the European Union
should be. The phrase “Euro-federalism” is widely used, but I think that it is a misnomer. People such as Delors want the European Union to move not towards a federal structure, but towards a highly centralised structure. That has been the whole direction of travel of the campaigns led by Delors and many other founders of the European Union, or the Common Market as it then was. They want us to move not towards a federation, but towards a highly centralised and quite autocratic structure.
I want to make one thing clear. I think that the debate on the European Union—we have seen elements of this today—is fairly irrational. If someone stands up on a public platform or in this House and praises the European Union, they are told that they are betraying our sovereignty and 1,000 years of history. If they criticise the European Union, however, they are condemned as a nationalist, a xenophobe and a little Englander. The reality is that my objections to the European Union are based on internationalism and the value of democracy, because the European Union has a marked tendency to be anti-democratic. I see that in what we are discussing today. That is why I think that the two amendments are perfectly reasonable and why I will be supporting them.