EU Referendum Leaflet

Debate between Anne-Marie Trevelyan and Stephen Gethins

Monday 9th May 2016 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

I wish you and all other colleagues here a happy Europe Day, Mr Stringer—of course, that has yet to come up in the debate. I particularly wish the Minister a happy Europe Day. When I attend debates such as this I seem to be in the unusual situation of being one of the friendlier faces he encounters. That is a sad state of affairs indeed, but he will be glad to learn that I have brought reinforcements, who are also champions of the remain campaign. Indeed, my hon. Friends the Members for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) and for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) have just returned from a visit to Brussels, where my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) made a strong case for remaining part of the European Union. The Scottish National party is helping where others are not at the moment.

Today’s debate, like the broader debate, appears to have a lot more to do with Conservative in-fighting than with the future of the European Union or the European debate. Indeed, some of the language used today has been rather intemperate and unfortunate. Of course, the leaflet is not yet for viewers in Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales; I have no doubt we will get ours soon. We have just come through an important election period when we have been discussing issues such as education, transport, local government and our health service. I wonder whether we should take the opportunity to press the reset button on this particular debate now that we have come through those elections.

We would like to hear some positive remarks. The hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) threatened to grind government to a halt over the leaflet. He also made reference to the armada. Of course, some historians think the armada set forth as a direct result of the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. We have talked about the royal family, and Mary Queen of Scots’ forebears could not be any more European. [Interruption.] We have a monarch on the throne at the moment who is descended from Germans and married to a Greek-Danish prince. You cannot get a lot more European than that.

[Mrs Trevelyan]

The key point that I have probably had to reiterate more than any other is that there is Europe, and then there is the EU. The EU is a political construct. Europe is a geographical construct made up of many countries, some of which are in the EU and some of which are not. To continue to misuse the two terms is to treat the Great British public as stupid. They understand clearly the difference between the two.

[Stephen Gethins]

I thank the hon. Lady. She will be glad to hear that we will not be putting the fact that the Queen is married to a Danish-Greek prince at the heart of our campaign. We will be putting at the heart of our campaign the fact that the European Union makes us greener, wealthier, fairer and safer.

Fundamentally, we need to think about questions of fairness. That was reflected in the amendments that SNP Members tabled to the European Union Referendum Bill. I see in the Chamber Opposition and Government Members who backed some of those amendments—they were unsuccessful, but we are getting used to that in this place. We tabled those amendments because fairness has to be at the heart of this debate.

The Chair of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), said that whoever is defeated must be able to do so with good grace. That is critical. I hope the Minister will agree that the referendum needs to be seen to be scrupulous. In our amendments to the Bill we were quite particular about the purdah period, because we hope not to see any last-minute promises or vows from either side, made out of panic.

I note that some Government Members have hit out at “Project Fear”. I am glad that since the Scottish independence referendum, a large number of Conservative Members have had their hallelujah moment about that. I feared seeing far too much of “Project Fear”. I sincerely hope we will move on from that.