EU Council

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

International investors know that Britain has the advantage of being a member of the single market, but outside the eurozone and the euro. I would say to the hon. Gentleman that the greatest risk for Britain would be to go into a treaty, including a new treaty of the 17 at the EU level, that did not safeguard our interests. Of course I would rather that our protocol had been accepted and that those protections and safeguards had been put in place; they were not, so the greater danger would have been to go ahead with a treaty without those safeguards.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Given that Britain has, or perhaps had, many natural friends and allies in the rest of Europe, why does the Prime Minister think he failed to persuade a single one of them of his case?

[The Prime Minister]

There is great understanding of Britain’s interests in the European Union and great support for our backing of the single market, particularly among countries like Holland, Sweden and Germany and the Baltic states. We have just achieved a breakthrough deal—something the right hon. Gentleman never achieved in all his years in government—of a freeze in the EU budget. Britain did that by having allies and supporters in the EU who backed our move.