European Affairs

That may well be the case in the country at large, but it is certainly not the case in this Parliament, as far as the Whips are concerned. That is part of the reason why we are living in a parliamentary sham; that is part of the problem. On the question of UKIP, the deputy leader of that party stood against me at the last general election, and he lost his deposit. There is a lesson to be learned there: if we put forward policies that are genuinely in the interests of our electorate and they know what those policies are, they will vote for us. That is exactly what has happened: my majority has tripled since 1997. I am simply making the point, in common with several of my Conservative colleagues, that people will vote for those of us who have consistently pursued a policy of looking after our constituents and the country by arguing the case, not for a completely absurd, negative view of Europe but for trying to make Europe work properly. That is the whole point. In order to make Europe work properly, we have to have an association of nation states. If hon. Members read the speeches of Václav Klaus of the Czech Republic, they will see that he speaks exactly the same language. I have done many conferences with him, and we talk the same language for the same reasons. We want a Europe that works; we do not want a European Government. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) said the other day, we want trade and co-operation. I must have said that a thousand times. We also want British laws for British judges. That was my comment, which I made to the Prime Minister on 10 November last year, and which was picked up by UKIP. If we had a policy that genuinely argued for the kind of Europe that we ought to have, I know that we would win the next general election by a landslide. We would see the end of the BNP argument on the Europe front. I have already argued against racism—I was arguing against it back in 1993—but the plain fact is that people have not been listening. We have argued our case, and I have put myself on the line over this matter. My constituents—in Stafford up to 1997, and subsequently in Stone—have backed me all the time, and so has my local association, although I can tell the House that there have been attempts periodically to destabilise my position. During the critical time of the debates on Maastricht, Mr. Ted Bowers got up at the end of my speech to the annual general meeting and said, "Mr. Cash, remember the words of Churchill: your first duty is to your country; your second duty is to your constituents; in the third instance, your duty is to your party's policy and programme." Anyone who adheres to that is doing the right thing for their constituents and for their party, because, as Disraeli said, the Conservative party is a national party or it is nothing. He did not mean nationalistic; he meant national. We must have a programme involving an association of nation states that can and does work, and that is what people want. When we look at the comparisons between ourselves and the eurozone, we see that, time and again, we have done better: on inflation, on employment and on a whole raft of measures. As we move towards the summit that is coming up in a few days, the bottom line is that it is time for the Government to stand up for this country and to stand against the ridiculous sell-out on City regulatory matters. They must stand up for this country, because if they do not, this place will remain a sham. We need to stand up for our parliamentary democracy, because it is the electorate's democracy, not ours.