I entirely agree. The European Scrutiny Committee was unanimous in its report, which was severely critical of the BBC’s failure to be sufficiently impartial in relation to European matters. There will be further discussion of that issue as we continue to debate the Bill.
At the 1922 committee meeting, I made it clear that we would engage not in wilful opposition but in a process of mutual respect and debate. In plain English, what the Prime Minister said on 23 March boils down to the following. He said that he wanted to change the basic principles by which the United Kingdom is connected to the European Union. He carefully distinguished between “fundamental change” in our relationship and mere reform of it. Reform may include some treaty change to include issues relating to benefits and so forth, but they pale into insignificance by comparison with the Prime Minister’s own assertion that he wants “fundamental change” in our relationship with the EU.
In its report on referendums, the House of Lords Constitution Committee made it clear that a referendum would be primarily necessary in the event of a proposition that we leave the European Union, as opposed to mere nibbling at the treaties. I have said repeatedly for years that if we do not achieve this fundamental change, we will have to leave the European Union. That becomes essential if we are to govern ourselves in line with the wishes of the voters in general elections. In his Bloomberg speech, the Prime Minister said:
“It is national parliaments which are, and will remain, the true source of real democratic legitimacy and accountability in the EU.”
Nothing is more important than that when it comes to the government of our country and its freedom.
Other member states may seek to block this action, but they do so at their own peril. They need us politically and economically, and they repeatedly say that they want us to remain in the EU; but then the handouts, the bail-outs, the subsidies and the ideology of political union get in the way. We have positive alternatives to the European Union. Our democracy and our national Parliament are what people fought and died for in two world wars, and it was through their sacrifice that we saved Europe in those two wars. It is not in the interests of Germany, Europe or ourselves for us to remain in the second tier of a two-tier Europe dominated and profoundly affected by a de facto eurozone, which is in reality at the epicentre of the legal framework of the European Union itself, in which we have been embedded by successive treaties and which does not work.