European Union (Amendment) Bill

I want to bring my speech to a close. On day five of the debate, on foreign affairs, the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks, who speaks for the Opposition—[Hon. Members: ““ Brilliantly.””] He is a very good after-dinner speaker, although I am not sure about the content. The right hon. Gentleman let the cat out of the bag. He could not think of one change in the treaty that he supported—not a single one. He wants to rely on the previous arrangements agreed at Nice, but what did he say about the Nice treaty? He opposed that, too. He claimed that the European security and defence policy provisions were a step towards ““a superstate”” and that they would progressively ““move away from NATO.”” So he does not support the Nice treaty. What about arrangements before that, such as the treaty agreed at Amsterdam? The right hon. Gentleman opposed that, too. He said:"““Amsterdam was a bad Treaty. Bad for Europe and bad for Britain””." There is a pattern here. The right hon. Gentleman opposes every single treaty that comes before us: no to the Lisbon treaty, no to the Nice treaty, and no to the Amsterdam Treaty. No, no, no: we have heard that before from the Dispatch Box. That makes the key point that the Conservative party has a fundamental problem: 18 years after Mrs. Thatcher’s departure from office, it is still haunted by the Thatcherite policy on Europe, and 16 years after Maastricht, the rebels on the fringes of the party are now calling the shots. It is no wonder one of the Conservative party’s MEPs has described its Europe policy as a poisonous fungus eating away at the heart of the party. The question before us is simple: do the contents of the treaty constitute a fundamental shift in the balance of power? The answer is no. The responsibility is ours, as Members of Parliament; I say, vote down the amendments and let us do what we are paid for.