| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Dr. Julian Lewis: In support of what my hon. Friend has said about politicians being responsible, would he accept that some politicians in the EU are themselves responsible? I have in mind that Neil Kinnock and others felt it necessary to resign as being part of a collective responsibility for corruption, and then felt able to return to office. Surely that creates a cynical view among the British electorate about what is going on.
Sir Raymond Whitney: As I said at the beginning of my remarks, I would be the first person to agree that many mistakes have been made, of which my hon. Friend has drawn attention to one. With respect, there is nothing gained in scoring points on that matter. We must move forward and get things right in future, whatever mistakes have been made in the past.
On those issues, there are fundamentally two groups. As I have said, views on them go across party. There are those who think that the EU will never work, or at least will never work for the United Kingdom. They want us to get out of it. A larger group, of which I am one, believe that we must stay in, make the EU work as best we can and get the best deal for the United Kingdom.
I believe that the first group is completely wrong and would harm the United Kingdom if its ambition of removing us from the EU were achieved. I do not wish to sound patronising, but the members of this group have a complete right to their view. I could mount a defence of their view even though I do not believe in it. I speak rather like a barrister.
I have only one request for those people who take the view that we should get out of the EU, and that is honesty. If they want us out, they should say so. Damage is being done by those who want us out but who are not prepared to say so. They criticise continuously, using the silly sort of newspaper reports to which I have referred. They demand new initiatives in the EU, which they know our partners would find completely unacceptable, because they are against the spirit of the union. They look for defeat and, having been defeated, their enthusiasm for getting out is rekindled.
Mr. Nicholls:
My hon. Friend's appeal for honesty in this context is justifiable. Will he tell me honestly whether he has read the treaty of Rome? Secondly, if he has read it, will he honestly deny that it is patently a document in which a common market with a single currency are not ends in themselves but part of a project for a federal Europe? Has my hon. Friend read the treaty and will he deny that that is its content?
Sir Raymond Whitney:
I have not read every word of the treaty of Rome. However, when we were debating other treaties, I referred to the treaty of Rome and worked my way through it. I have ploughed my way through most of it.
The treaty envisages an ever-closer union of peoples. It is up to us as more or less intelligent political leaders and individuals to make sense of the treaty of Rome, and not to be bamboozled by legal terminology. My hon. Friend should not denigrate what has been achieved and what
more can be achieved. Those who want us out of Europe should be honest. We need an end to the subterfuge of those who will not declare that they want us out, but seek to make such a withdrawal inevitable.
For the second group, in which I include myself, the first task is to make sure that we state our case more clearly. The declared policy of my party is to be"In Europe, not run by Europe". I endorse that slogan. There are two elements to that proposition, and both are important.
For me, and surely for any reasonable person, to be in Europe means to approach Europe in a positive spirit--a spirit that will ensure as far as possible that the union will work--and to recognise that, in a union of 15 countries now, and more in future, working with so many partners entails compromise and sometimes pragmatism. Pragmatism is a great principle of the Conservative party.
We must make sure that people understand that there are benefits from being in Europe, and what those benefits are. If there are no benefits, let us get out and stop saying that we want to be in Europe. When more than 50 per cent. say that they want to get out, that demonstrates our failures so far and the need for us to work harder.
On the other part of the formula--"not run by Europe"--I can think of no hon. Member who would claim to want to be ruled by Europe, but too many in our party refuse to recognise and welcome the fact that, since Maastricht, things in Europe have been moving in a direction that ensures that there need be no question of being ruled by Europe.
Maastricht was a watershed, followed by Amsterdam. After that, the European Union switched from being a nascent European federation in the days of Mr. Delors, to become a treaty-based system of managing relations between sovereign states. If any of my hon. Friends are in doubt about that, I refer them to a useful article that appeared in The Economist on 23 October, which sets that out in interesting detail.
If we understood that, we would put away the fear and the myth of the European super-state that seems to keep some of my hon. Friends awake at night, tossing and turning in their beds. The Heads of Government have taken back from the Commission the powers that were drifting to it. We should understand the degree to which the situation has changed.
I am dismayed when I have discussions with colleagues who fail to recognise that change. They also fail to recognise that European politicians, for various understandable reasons, use different rhetoric from us. The word "federal", for example, means different things in different states--we are all familiar with that old chestnut. I know of no leading politician in Europe, whether in government or in opposition, who is aching to hand over the power to govern his country to some supranational body or other group of foreigners.
Take the euro. Let us understand that the member states of the EU are not led by idiots. They have extremely successful economies, and their Governments will not jeopardise what they have achieved over the past 50 years. They decided that, for both economic and political reasons, the single market and the single currency made sense. However, they did not hand over control to the
European Commission. They handed it over to an independent central bank, because their experience, which on the whole had been successful, showed that independent central banks work.
Such a climate is relatively new--it is certainly new to some of my hon. Friends. It gives Britain a chance to achieve our objectives in Europe, and to implement the initiatives for which we are well qualified--to liberalise trade, to open up markets, and to do what our former right hon. Friend, Sir Leon Brittan, did in the Uruguay round. We have our chance in Seattle to do that again.
If Britain operates with good will, it can bring to the European Union the sort of initiatives that most of my hon. Friends would welcome. We have many more friends in Europe and potential allies in such objectives than we sometimes seem to think.
Mr. Bercow:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. Does it perturb him that entry to the euro would entail monetary policy being run by a governing council of the central bank that comprises three Germans, two Dutchman, two Finns, two Frenchmen, two Italians, two Spaniards, a Belgian, an Irishman, a Luxemburger and a Portuguese, whom we are legally prohibited from seeking in any way to influence in their conduct of policy?
Sir Raymond Whitney:
As we have not allowed ourselves to be in at the creation of the central bank, we cannot complain. My hon. Friend is a classic example of being hostile to Europe, calling for initiatives which go wrong, and exulting when they go wrong. He is smiling, and he knows that I am right.
We have heard much in the debate about defence. It has been known for a generation that western Europe has failed to keep pace with the Americans in its defence effort. I was involved a quarter of a century ago in a project called the two-way street. I tried in my modest way to help in that, but we failed for various reasons. We go on failing, and the gap between the American capability and the western Europeans' gets worse. That was highlighted in Bosnia and Kosovo, and we all know now about the differences in weapons, strategic lift and all the other aspects that my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) listed.
In Europe, we have 50 per cent. more population than the Americans, but they spend 60 per cent. more than we do on defence. According to last year's figures, the average per capita defence expenditure in the United States was $1,038; in the European Union, it was $389. The gaps in expenditure and capability must be closed. We Europeans must do more and do it better, whether through the Anglo-French initiative, the Franco-German initiative, the rapid reaction force, EDSI--the European defence and security identity--or by changing the Western European Union. We must have a capability of our own.
All of us who are dedicated Atlanticists know that we must be extremely careful about NATO, which is the most successful alliance that there has ever been, and the commitment to the Americans. They know that, we know that, the Germans know that, and I have every confidence that we have enough nous to create a relatively modest but effective European military force without upsetting NATO and the European Union. We have had that debate in the Conservative party for many years; I hope that it
will not last much longer. I hope that we will face reality and tell those who want us out of Europe to be clear, open and honest. The rest of us can then make sure that we are truly "In Europe, not run by Europe".
I end with a quotation from a former distinguished Prime Minister, who said:
"Britain does not dream of some cosy, isolated existence on the fringes of the European Community. Our destiny is Europe, as part of that Community."
Those were the words of Baroness Thatcher 11 years ago.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |