European Union (Amendment) Bill

The noble Lord displays his lack of great experience in international commerce. Also, he may not be aware that two years ago no less a personage than the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock—and I am sorry that he is not in his seat—together with the EU Competition Commissioner of the day admitted on the ““Today”” programme that there would be no conceivable penalty to British trade were we to leave the political construct of the European Union. Why would the Germans stop selling us motor cars? Would the French stop selling us wine? Just because the politicians are allowed to carry on with their crazy project in Brussels and we are set free to benefit from the new global position, that would not stop a single item of trade between us and the European Union. In fact, nobody trades with the European Union—except, possibly, the Mafia. We all have our trade with individual clients in the individual countries of the European Union. Personally, I trade with every one of them, and I know that none of that trade would be affected if we left the unfortunate political arrangements of the European Union. I think that I had got as far as saying that no less a personage than Mr Gunter Verheugen, the European Competition Commissioner, has put Brussels over-regulation at some 6 per cent of GDP. It is also true that our people, were we to leave, would benefit by roughly £1,000 a year per family in reduced food costs over a period of time because we were no longer submitted to the common agricultural policy. Furthermore, we would of course save some £12 billion or £14 billion a year in cash that we pour down the incompetent throat in Brussels. Those are some of the reasons—the dinner hour approaches, so I shall not detain noble Lords with more—why the UK Independence Party wants to leave the European Union. The majority of our national law is now imposed on us by an alien foreign system of government and our membership costs us untold sums—untold because the Government refuse a cost-benefit analysis that would confirm just how many billions we waste or how profitable the whole thing is. That was the subject of the amendment that I have just not moved, because I knew what the Government would say and it would have kept us here a very long time. Because of that, we want to leave the European Union as soon as possible and we would like to invite the British people to agree or disagree with us in a referendum. I beg to move.