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4.39 pm
John Cryer (Hornchurch): I rise to speak in favour of a referendum on the new European constitution and against the Government motion, although I do not do so lightly. However, we are going to see real shifts in political power, the draining of accountability and profound constitutional changes, which will have significant implications for this country.
There are three questions that have to be asked about the European constitution and the Convention that gave rise to it. The first is: was the process that gave rise to the constitution transparent, democratic and accountable? I have to say, without implying any criticism of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) or the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory), that that process did not happen. It was not democratic; it was not accountable; and it certainly was not clear.
The second question is whether the proposals mean profound constitutional change to the British and other west European constitutions, and the answer is yes. The answer to the third question—if the answer to the
previous question is yes, the third question is whether there should be a referendum on the constitution—is automatically yes. I am not a great supporter of referendums for any subject that happens to come along, because that would start to undermine parliamentary democracy and representative democracy. However, when there are real, profound and fundamental constitutional changes, which clearly affect the power of votes cast at the ballot box and votes cast in this place on behalf of the 60,000 or 70,000 electors who send us here, there must be a referendum to put the issue to the people.Was the process that gave rise to the constitution democratic and accountable? The fact is that it was not. The praesidium, which was largely stuffed with Euro-fanatics, met in private and decided the agenda on a week-by-week or day-by-day basis. It decided what was being debated and discussed, and no votes were taken. Representations were made from outside public bodies, but from everything that I have read about the processes of the Convention, I know that many of those bodies had a peculiarly close relationship with the EU.
I would like to ask a question, though my right hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench—or anyone else—may not know the answer. How many of the bodies making representations—largely of a Euro-fanatic variety—had received funding from the EU? I would be fascinated to know the answer, and my guess is that quite a lot of them received EU funding in one way or another. They then went along to the Convention, made representations that were largely in favour of integration, handing more power over to the EU, merging the three pillars of the European community into one and extending the European Court of Justice. Of course they had a vested interest in making those sort of representations because they were financed by the EU. I shall give three examples of how the Convention and constitution will radically change representative democracy in this country. Article 10.1 states clearly:
- "The Constitution and law adopted by the Union's Institutions . . . shall have primacy over the law of member states."
Mr. MacShane: Is my hon. Friend aware that that has been the case since 1957? That language is used in every single treaty since 1957. If we want a common trade policy, someone has to tell member states what the trading policy should be. There is nothing new in this.
John Cryer: That may be so, but the big difference is that the three pillars of the European Community are being merged into one. The two intergovernmental pillars are being collapsed into the pillar that supports the European Community, which means that the European Court of Justice will have massively enhanced powers of jurisdiction—[Interruption.] It will. That is how it works. If we examine the history of the European Court of Justice, its interventions and its decisions about western Europe, we find that it clearly always comes down on the side of the Euro-fanatics—in favour of more integration and greater powers going to the EU. Health is a good example. A case was taken to the European Court of Justice. It was previously thought that EU law did not affect health, but the European
Court of Justice ruled that health was a service, that services can be traded, and that health therefore fell under the jurisdiction and law of the EU.
Mrs. Browning: I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman's interpretation. Does he agree that in the past the ECJ has based its decisions on case law only, but in future they will be based on the constitution? That is a new concept entirely, giving the constitution primacy over the rule of law.
John Cryer: That is true, and in line with what I was saying.
The second example that I wanted to give was from article 14, which entails the compulsory co-ordination of economic policy. My bet is that we will be told that that has nothing to do with the ECJ and that it is only warm words, but that we will see cases taken before the ECJ which will, in all probability, rule in favour of greater EU integration. The third example comes from later in the document. It states:
- "The member states shall work together to enhance and develop their mutual political solidarity . . . and . . . refrain from any action which is contrary to the interests of the Union or likely to impair its effectiveness as a cohesive force in international relations."
The history of the ECJ is of decisions in favour of the European Community, the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Union—every time. We also have the charter of fundamental rights, and I remember when it was published. We were told that it would be virtually meaningless. I remember that my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) said that it would have as much meaning as The Beano. It is a good job that my hon. Friend did not use Viz as an example, because then we would have to watch out for Finbar Saunders and his double entendres in the Convention in the future.
Mr. John Burnett (Torridge and West Devon): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if proceedings are taken on the charter, we will have almost perpetual litigation and the prospect of a conflict between the charter and the ECJ?
John Cryer: The conflict will probably be between the charter of fundamental rights and the ECHR, and that has already been pointed out in the Council of Europe. It is clear that conflicts will arise between the European convention on human rights, the charter of fundamental rights and the ECJ. Interestingly, the ECJ has a tendency to refer the odd human rights case that it receives to the European Court of Human Rights, because the ECJ has no real competence in such matters. I suspect that such cases will now stay with the ECJ and it will rule in a way that we can all predict.
If we adopt the constitution without holding a plebiscite so that people have the right to have a say on the future of the Convention, I predict that the reaction will be nationalism. If people in western Europe—and
for that matter in central Europe and eastern Europe—have the constitution and the single currency shoved down their throats, without a full national debate and vote, we will see a backlash, and it will be nationalism. It might not happen tomorrow, or even the day after, but at some point that will be the reaction. That is my real fear.We have seen increasing numbers of people refusing to vote in elections, in this country and in many other western European countries. I suspect that it is because so many people feel that they are losing control of their destiny. That is happening in all sorts of ways, and I do not blame only the European Union. If we sign up to the constitution, which will shift power and mean real constitutional change, without giving people the right to have a say, increasing numbers of them will depart from the mainstream and refuse to vote in general elections.
Given all the changes that are happening—the constitution, the euro, the stripping away of power over monetary policy and the introduction of a central tax-gathering mechanism, which will happen in the future and is even mentioned in the Maastricht treaty, for those of us who have read it—it is clear that Governments and political parties will eventually have to say to the people, "Well, we are sorry about the recession and the other problems, but there is not a lot we can do about it, because the power has gone. It is now vested with people who are not elected and are not accountable, but who can make decisions that have the most profound effect on your lives."
David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire): Will my hon. Friend give way?
John Cryer: No, because I have almost finished.
At that point, the turnout in elections and the participation in the democratic process will drop like a stone.
4.50 pm
Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory (Wells): The Convention on the Future of Europe is very nearly at an end. Tomorrow morning, I shall travel to Brussels on what I think will be my 32nd visit in the past 16 months. I will be joining the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), who is out there already. I am very grateful for the kind remarks directed at me and the hon. Lady in respect of our efforts to defend the British position and the powers of this House during the course of the convention.
I hope that tomorrow's session will be the final one, as further damaging proposals against the British interest have been inserted at a very late stage in each of my previous visits to Brussels. In essence, however, we now have the draft in complete form. It is very important that we have a fully informed national debate on the matter, but that debate needs honesty as well as information. I strongly agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), as I normally do. He made an outstanding speech, especially in his appeal for an end to the cynicism about politics and politicians.
People simply do not believe that they have been told the truth about Europe over the years. They are constantly referred back to the 1975 referendum, but the
Union is unrecognisably different from what we thought we were voting on nearly 30 years ago. It is time that we squared matters with the electorate, and told them exactly what is in store. We must get away from the absurd pretence that this is a tidying-up exercise. The Government must describe accurately and honestly the radical proposals, and defend them. If they are so good for this country, the Government should have the courage to put them to the British people in a referendum.One of the extraordinary facts about the European debate is that the Government have two radical—almost revolutionary—policies in respect of Europe. They want to give up the pound, and import a written constitution, yet it is I and other Opposition Members who are accused of being the extremists. All we want to do is retain powers at home, in the hands of people who are elected and who can be removed—that is, people who are clearly and directly accountable to those whom they serve. Is that radical or extreme?
The Government must explain themselves. I agreed with some of the points made by the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell), who described some of the proposals as "inescapably constitutional". That is why it is called a constitution. We are making constitutional changes of enormous and far-reaching importance, as is widely accepted in other member states.
All the existing treaties, and all the articles since 1957, are going to be repealed. After amendment, some will be brought back into the constitution. The result will be longer than the treaties that we already have, so any idea that we are simplifying or tidying up is absurd. The volume is getting larger, but I do not believe that the result will be any clearer, for the lay reader at least.
For instance, we have been talking about the idea of shared competencies, but that is an example of eurospeak for shared powers. There is no clear idea about who does what. Do member states have 90 per cent. of a competence, and the Union 10 per cent? If that slowly evolves into the Union having 90 per cent. and member states 10 per cent., there will be no assurance to the public that the familiar power creep to the Union has finally been ended.
As for qualified majority voting, the score in the present draft is that 34 new areas will be transferred from unanimity to QMV. That number increases every time I go to Brussels. Incidentally, QMV applied to only 12 areas under the Single European Act, which prepared the way for the single market.
I share the alarm expressed on both sides of the House about the passerelle clause.
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