I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I apologise for understating my opposition to this Bill. That is not an error I shall repeat.
The Bill is a desperate disappointment. When I was first elected, I was told by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills that Governments would promise things. They would give guarantees, undertakings and reassurances about how Eurosceptic they were, and I, as a young and naive new Member, would believe them and put trust in the leadership of the party to speak as it did, just as my hon. Friend found when he first came here. He said that as time went by I would find that those promises turned out to be as ashes and dust, and that although the Government were willing to say, to play, and to sing the Eurosceptic tune, they would actually be dancing the pro-European dance. In this Bill, that dance has been taken to a further degree. It would win “Strictly Come Dancing” for its skill in dancing to the pro-European tune. It is a great betrayal of trust.
This is not about the amount of money involved, which is small; it is the principle of proposing and advancing the citizenship of Europe—a citizenship that is odious to most subjects of Her Majesty. It is something we never asked for, never wanted, and that most of us would reject, and we object to our taxes being taken to pay for it.
“Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”
We know Her Majesty’s Government’s true pro-European colours from this particular fruit.
5.46 pm