European Affairs

It is a pleasure and honour to participate in this debate. Having listened to the previous speakers, I find that I am probably in the unique position of rising to support my Front-Bench colleagues, rather than to speak against them. May I begin by welcoming the new Europe Minister to his place? It seems that the shelf life of a European Minister is about one year, so he might just make it to the next general election before he is rotated into another post, but he is most welcome, and I look forward to hearing what he has to say in response to the many questions that have been put in the debate. Many of us come to such debates having dusted off the old speech we have used in previous years and say the same things about our position, either for or against Europe. Today, however, we are in a very different situation, and we are certainly in unique times. Let us just pause and think about some of the events that have taken place over the past couple of months. We have had an expenses scandal that has rocked the foundations of Parliament itself. We are enduring one of the worst economic downturns since the second world war. We have had record jumps in unemployment. We have had disastrous local election results for the governing party, to the point where it no longer represents any county in the country. We have also had calamitous EU election results for the ruling party, in which it got only about 16 per cent. of the vote. We have had the resignation of 11 Ministers, and The Guardian—a left-wing newspaper—has called for the Prime Minister to go. Also, as revealed today by my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), the Foreign Secretary has considered resigning. Each of those events is dramatic, but taken together they are unprecedented. One would think that the Prime Minister might get the message that he and his Government are unpopular and that it is time for a general election, but efforts by Labour Members to try to unseat him did not get anywhere; in fact, his weakness was put into context only by the weakness of the plot to oust him—and so this discredited Government limp on for another year. In the recent elections Labour managed to poll only about 15 per cent.—the last time it polled that sort of figure was in the days of Michael Foot—and came third behind the UK Independence party; the Labour Government were the first to allow the British National party a foothold in the European Union; and Labour was also beaten by the Scottish National party for the first time in a UK-wide election. The results were disastrous for Labour, so I have been amazed by some of its Front Benchers saying, "We'll ignore all that. We'll ignore what the nation is saying and plod on in our own way. We believe that what we think is right is the way forward, and that the very people who voted us in are wrong." That shows how out of touch this Government are, and why we are in such need of a general election. There are many reasons why Labour achieved such a dismal result, one of which relates to the Lisbon treaty—or the reform treaty, to use its correct name. The public have never had their say on that treaty, which is so pivotal to today's debate and to our relationship with the European Union. Of course, the nation knows that we were promised a referendum in Labour's 2005 manifesto, and that semantics are being relied on to say that we do not need to have one. Hon. Members may recall that on the very day the treaty was signed, 13 December 2007, the Prime Minister turned up after all the other leaders of the various countries had signed the document, popping in during the evening to try to avoid the cameras. That shows how embarrassed the Government and the Prime Minister are about this treaty, and why they are ignoring what the nation is trying to say today. Another aspect of the Lisbon treaty that has been mentioned many times today is the pivotal position of Ireland, whose people voted against the treaty in their referendum. Not being content with that result—not being content with democracy having its say—the EU has put pressure on Ireland to hold the referendum again. What does that say about the moral authority of, and democracy in, the European Union? What does that say about listening to the people and how they have voted? Of course sweeteners will be given to Ireland, and we will have to wait to see the outcome of any result, but it is sad indictment of the democratic standards that we try to uphold in this House and beyond that when we are not happy with a result, we then work on the situation until we get the result that we require. I plead with the Minister to recognise that there is a desire for the electorate—the stakeholders, who very much have an interest in this—finally to have a say. Why not allow us to have the referendum that was promised in the manifesto?