European Affairs

That is not so, I am afraid. I shall not spend the rest of my speech explaining why, although I will be happy to talk to the hon. Lady about it later. I shall be dealing with the matter in due course in Parliament as a whole. The hon. Lady referred to the competence question. In relation to the German constitutional court, I have argued for a long time—not in an anti-German sense, but simply because that country is the predominant force in Europe—that Germany is creating a situation in which it determines, through the Karlsruhe court, whether its own constitution will determine the future of Europe. The court is saying that Germany will not do anything inconsistent with its constitution. Gerhard Schröder put it this way a few years ago: "I am European because I am German." That is important because we have to understand that this is about not only the law but matters of foreign policy and the national interests of individual countries represented as the member states of the European Union. There was a similar situation, although a long time ago, with regard to the development of the United States. John Taylor, a great ally of Thomas Jefferson on states' rights, set out unequivocally the basis on which in the United States constitution the states' rights were to be absolutely at the heart of the American federal system. The European Union does not exactly have a federal system, but all the necessary ingredients are there, with one great exception. In relation to economic competitiveness, the single market is governed by a uniform system that, as I said in the debate on the financial regulations, prevents competitiveness. We do not have states' rights in the European Union. One reason for the success of the American economy has been those states' rights, which have created an economic environment within which the United States has been capable of developing its economy. We have a mixture of political failure and over-exuberance—perhaps even over-indulgence—in the judicial field, in respect of the European Court of Justice and, quite probably, of our own Supreme Court. In addition to that, we have economic failure. The reality is that Europe is not working. There is very high unemployment, as there always has been. I said this during the debates on the Maastricht treaty as well. The bottom line is that there is interference in every nook and cranny of every part of the lives of the people whom we represent. It does not work; that is why we need to have renegotiation. In a referendum, which I believe is still essential, the question that I would put, as I said in The Daily Telegraph the other day, is "Should the United Kingdom renegotiate the terms of its relationship within the European Union?" That is not an "in or out" question, but, believe me, if we presented it to people we would get at least 80 per cent. saying yes, we should renegotiate those terms. That would then enable the United Kingdom to lead the process of renegotiation to turn this increasingly amorphous, homogenous and utterly useless organisation into something that could work effectively on the basis of political co-operation and trade—a semi-EFTA, or European Free Trade Association, arrangement—and get rid of the notion of European government, which is completely autocratic and is destroying our democracy. These are not just the rantings of a Eurosceptic. This is about good government and democracy, and proper accountability, in relation to the wishes of the electorate whom we are supposed to represent. I agree with the hon. Lady about the Committee on Reform of the House of Commons set up under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright). That is nibbling at the root of the problem of how to return real accountability to this House. We should rediscover the confidence to be able to hold the Government to account and to ensure that we are not just run by the Whips through a process of advancement, preferment, ministerial office and whatever else. We represent the people of this country, and it is our duty and task to ensure that we are guaranteeing that they are governed in a proper and sensible manner. By ceding this massive degree of control to the European Union, we have abrogated our responsibility. I can understand that in 1945 people did not want to have another war in Europe. My father was killed in the war. However, times have changed. The problem is that the arrangements that were set up and the development of the functions of the European Union have not kept pace with what is required. We have allowed more and more integration when we should have been creating an association of member states. That is what we should have been doing, and that is what we have to come back to; otherwise the people of Europe will suffer as well as the people of the United Kingdom. We have to restore to the people, through the ballot box, real democracy on the ground. This is not just a theoretical and ideological approach—it is about making Europe work in the interests of the people whom we represent, as we are completely failing to do so. We are told that we have to put the economy ahead of the European issue, but the trouble is that the economy is affected by the European issue. There is over-regulation, which costs European businesses €600 billion a year. There are the problems of the common agricultural policy, the common fisheries policy, and so on. We have to restore government to the people of this country. That requires a referendum of a proper kind, which I will continue to insist on, and a sovereignty Bill that would ensure—I have a wording that would achieve this objective—that we have a template against which we can repatriate powers and force renegotiation within the European Union. That is our objective, and that is what we must achieve. It is in the national interest, and we must do it immediately.