European Communities (Finance) Bill

Will the hon. Gentleman give me a moment? I do not think the Eurosceptics should be proud of that achievement. I do not think they should be proud of having deceived the public. I think they should be ashamed of using such methods, and I hope that the more honest among them will now examine the facts. I hope that they will look at the report from the European Court of Auditors, which they will find in the Library. If they do, they will see that I am right. The reserves, I repeat, relate to the member states' role in the disbursement of Union funds, not to the Commission and the other institutions of the Union itself. That is very important. It is clear to me that the Conservative party is engaged in pure political opportunism. The Conservatives do not wish to draw the logical conclusions of their own policies, and they do not wish the public to draw those conclusions. They want to be all things to all men. They want to go in for doublespeak. They want to go around the Conservative clubs and talk to the chauvinists there. We all know that such people exist in Conservative clubs throughout the country, and I have met a great many of them over the past 20 years. The Conservatives want to go around those clubs and say, ““Get these nasty foreigners out. We aren't going to let our country be taken over by France and Germany,”” and so on. They want to come out with all that rhetoric, which will be popular in their constituencies and with the Tory party, but they know that it will not play with those on the middle ground of politics, so they will say to those people, ““Oh no, we really believe in our membership of the European Union; we're totally signed up to it.”” I can give two reasons—indeed, I could give more—why it is clear that the Conservatives are not genuinely signed up. One is their policy on the European People's party, which was a gratuitous unprovoked insult to those who had been their best friends for generations. [Interruption.] That is what it was, and how can they possibly expect it to be forgotten? We are talking about having a relationship with someone, signing an agreement agreeing to sit with someone—in this case, in the European Parliament—for five years, and then saying ““We're going to tear up this agreement because we don't like it. We're going to spit in your face.”” Do the Tories really think that if they ever came to power, that would be forgotten? Do they really think that a bank of good will would be waiting for them if, by some awful mischance, they ever found themselves in Downing street? They would be far less well placed to negotiate anything on behalf of this country; that is absolutely clear. What will happen if the House turns down the Bill tonight? Let us again draw the logical conclusions from the Conservatives' position, for they do not want to do it themselves. There will be an unnecessary and gratuitous crisis in our relations with the European Union. People will say, ““The British Government signed up to this, and then backed out of it.”” The east Europeans will say, ““My goodness me! We thought that the British were our friends, we thought that they supported us in enlargement, and now the Tory party has got itself a majority in Parliament””—if that were ever to happen, which I trust it will not—““and turned the deal down.”” It would take a long, long time to restore our reputation for good faith after that. I put it to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that there are only two possible explanations. Either the Tory party has not realised the logic of its position, or it has, and it wants a crisis in our relations with the EU. That is why the Tories talk nonsense about pulling out of the common fisheries policy or the social chapter. It is really shorthand for creating a crisis and putting us in an impossible position—a position in which we could not pursue the principles that they have set out, and will I suppose set out in their manifesto, and still maintain our full membership of the European Union. That is a very serious matter for the House, and I am glad that the Tories have so blatantly revealed what is clearly their agenda.