European Union (Amendment) Bill

I will come to that point directly, because it is important. A similar amendment tabled by the hon. Gentleman was selected last week. It challenged the basis of UK participation in the European Union since 1973, which is that on matters of European competence, European law should have primacy. To argue otherwise is to argue that we should be able to join a club, but not abide by the rules. I will show him in this debate that, contrary to the allegation that we have been led into a European project that no one ever warned about, there was absolute clarity all the way through the debates in the 1970s, from Geoffrey Rippon to Geoffrey Howe, whom I shall quote later, and other former hon. Members—