European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between Peter Bone and Douglas Alexander

Friday 17th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alexander]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, which points to two truths. The first is the importance of economic stability and certainty in relation to investment and the opportunities that British business needs not just to invest and employ, but to export in the future. The second is that it shows just how far the Conservative party has travelled.

[Mr Bone]

rose—

[Mr Alexander]

Who better to describe the journey the modern Conservative party is taking than the hon. Gentleman? I am happy to give way.

[Mr Bone]

I congratulate the shadow Foreign Secretary on his excellent and powerful speech, and I look forward to his putting his name forward in the next few weeks to become the next leader of the Labour party. I think we agree on the major point that the Labour party is clearly against an in/out referendum, and I am grateful to him for clarifying that. We also agree that it is very unlikely that the European Union will give the reforms that the Prime Minister wants. The difference is that, finally, at the end of the journey, it will be the British people who decide. That is the right way forward. Why will the Labour party not agree to that?

[Mr Alexander]

Flattering though the hon. Gentleman’s introduction to his question was, I fear that we diverge on at least two substantive points. First, Labour takes a conditions-based approach to an EU referendum. We think that the right point to have a referendum would be that which the Conservative party used to favour—indeed, it was in the Conservative manifesto. The party that has shifted its position is not the Labour party, but the Conservative party. The second point on which we take a different position is that we continue to believe that it is in Britain’s strategic, long-term interest to remain part of a changed and reformed European Union. It is not that the character of Europe is incapable of reform; it is that the competence of this Prime Minister means that he has failed abjectly to deliver reform. He has spent four years burning bridges rather than building alliances. That is why we have ended up with the paltry list of so-called reforms that were suggested by the Foreign Secretary today, against a backdrop in which he is literally incapable of articulating what the reform agenda would be.

The common ground between the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and I is that both of us would like more clarity from Conservative Front Benchers on what the reform proposals are, what the red lines are and even how the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary would vote in a referendum. Indeed, if the Foreign Secretary would like to step up to the Dispatch Box and tell us something that he omitted to mention during his speech, he might answer this question: is he prepared, if he does not get the changes that he is hoping for in the reform discussions, to recommend a no vote? Once again, the silence speaks volumes. That might be a judgment based on loyalty to the Prime Minister that costs him many votes in a future leadership contest.