European Union (Amendment) Bill

Hyperbole does not help my hon. Friend's case. Yes, there is a deficit, but to say that the EU imports nothing from us is quite frankly ridiculous, given the figures. This is a two-way street, but the attitude I describe has become apparent not only with regard to the single market, to which my hon. Friend refers, but to energy. When we debated energy, the tenor of several Conservative Members' contributions concerning emergency energy provisions was that those nasty foreigners would come here and nick our energy supplies. The idea that we might need help from other states with our energy supplies in the United Kingdom—perhaps because the interconnector went down—did not occur to them and they would not accept that possibility when it was pointed out by others and myself in that debate. It was all a one-way street.