European Affairs

No, I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman—he talked enough rubbish previously. In July 1990, before Baroness Thatcher was assassinated, we had a policy that seriously began to make sense. She said, "No, no, no" to the developments that had subsequently taken place. I was invited to No. 10 Downing street to a lunch with a fair number of Cabinet members, and she turned to me and asked, "What do you feel about Europe, Bill?" I replied, "The problem is, Prime Minister, that your task is more difficult than Churchill's." She said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Churchill was faced with bombs and aircraft; you are faced with pieces of paper." That has been the case ever since. Today, our Parliament is a sham. We do not really legislate here—it is done out there, by majority voting, and particularly nowadays, by co-decision. As the leader of the Conservative party made clear in a good speech in November 2005 to the Centre for Policy Studies, we must draw back powers—repatriate them—to govern market legislation, employment legislation and so on. He said that it was imperative to regain competitiveness for this country and, to do that, we would repatriate those powers. He used the word, "repatriate", not "discussion", and not the words that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) used on Sunday, to which I felt obliged to reply. It took me six hours of negotiation with the BBC to be allowed a right of reply—it is all on e-mail and in telephone conversations. The House is being dragged further and further away from its democratic origins. As I said to the Prime Minister when he made the statement on constitutional renewal, people fought and died to maintain our democracy and the link between the Member of Parliament, the Government and the constituency. That is what people voted for in the previous general election and preceding elections. They did not vote for us to be governed by majority vote, out there in Europe. They certainly did not vote for the Lisbon treaty. Of course, a referendum would be authorised by Act of Parliament, so those strange people—bizarre eccentrics —who claim that a referendum is inconsistent with our parliamentary democracy simply do not understand what they are talking about. Referendums are authorised by Acts of Parliament. Why? Because Parliament decides that a matter is of such importance and so fundamental that it must be returned to the people. I give the Labour Government in 1975 credit for giving people that chance. So many millions of people today have not had that chance. That is why I say, as I have said before—Conservative Front Benchers know my views; I wrote a letter to The Times last week about the subject—that we must have referendum, irrespective of the Irish vote. It is essential that people in this country have the right to decide matters that Parliament has completely bypassed. The Government have betrayed the people—that is why we must have a referendum. It is very simple. As I have said, much of that is to do with, for example, the increase in institutional power, which we are now supposed to regard as being of no consequence. However, the power of co-decision is the most lethal piece of institutional machinery that has been devised. It means that we will have virtually no power over vast ranges of activity.