European Union (Amendment) Bill

I will proceed a little more. When this House debated the Maastricht treaty, the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills tabled a new clause calling for a referendum. I shall quote the arguments put by the then Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, who always defeated me in debate when I was shadow Foreign Secretary—and when I had the Home Office brief—because of the painful condescension with which he greeted my vehement arguments. Douglas Hurd, who was 10 times the Foreign Secretary that the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) will never be, said of the referendum on Maastricht proposed by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills:"““The decision for Britain lies where it belongs—in the hands of the British Parliament.””" He claimed that to have a referendum"““would be a blow to the standing of the House in years to come. We would be saying to our constituents, ‘We have examined the matter, but we do not intend to take a decision. We are going to throw the treaty, with all its diverse controversies and complications, into your laps to make of it what you will.’””" He rejected a referendum on the much more far reaching Maastricht treaty, saying:"““It cannot be right to refuse to do our job””.—[Official Report, 21 April 1993; Vol. 223, c. 455-6.]" I have told the Committee already that I am as sycophantic in adherence to the Whip as anybody in this House. I abase myself before my Whip, who is in his place to listen to me. I hope that he will let me off one or two debates as a result. [Laughter.] When the Maastricht treaty came before the House, I—sycophantic as always to the Whip—voted against a referendum, as, incidentally, did my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. However, we were not the only ones: others included the present shadow Foreign Secretary, the present shadow Defence Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), who became leader of his party, and the present Opposition Chief Whip—