Treaty of Lisbon (No. 7)

I was present during the Maastricht debates, and I did not believe any of that at the time, which is why I voted against—and why I voted for a referendum, by the way. The key point is that the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane), who loves all this stuff, was absolutely right earlier on. From the outset, the institutions were set up with one purpose in mind, which was centralisation, and taking powers from the nation state. It is impossible to reverse that process at any stage.