"I am not one of those who have been accused of abusing the courtesies of this House, but there is no requirement in the courtesies of this House to vote on a motion that is ridiculous, so I will not be voting on it.
Why has this situation come about? Why has supposedly the most powerful politician in the land come begging his MPs to support a private Member’s Bill? The Prime Minister’s position on the issue seems clear enough. He made a speech in January …..." John Denham - View Speech
"I quoted absolutely verbatim from the hon. Gentleman’s article. Let me respond to his further point. I would expect a Conservative MP to say, “You can’t really believe what Labour MPs say”, and I would expect Labour MPs to say, “You can’t really believe what Conservative MPs say.” That is …..." John Denham - View Speech
"The first point is that this is really a private matter for the Conservative party. Whether they believe that their Prime Minister is trustworthy or believable is primarily a matter for them, not for the rest of us. If they wish to humiliate their party leader, that is up to …..." John Denham - View Speech
"No, I am going to make a little more progress and then I will take another intervention.
The aim seemed clear enough: to put the Prime Minister’s promise on to a statutory basis. We know what the promise was: after the next election to have a renegotiation and then to …..." John Denham - View Speech
"Let me turn to the point I was about to address on how the national interest is served by this discussion. The national interest is the one thing that has been entirely missing from the debate so far. It is a debate about the Conservatives, and that is not the …..." John Denham - View Speech
"There is no doubt that this whole exercise is driven by the Conservative party’s terror of UKIP.
In answer to the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine)—I will come on to the specific point on a referendum in a moment—I want our future to be as a confident part of …..." John Denham - View Speech
"My right hon. Friend is right. What worries me is that the Prime Minister represents a party in which that generation of confident patriots, who believed that this country could shape Europe to the benefit of Europe and in the interests of our country, has gone. The Conservative party is …..." John Denham - View Speech
"I am very grateful indeed for the opportunity to have this debate. I hope that the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) and a number of others may be able to participate, given the time at which we are starting. I am also grateful that the Minister is …..." John Denham - View Speech
"One of the most serious problems is that there has been no acceptance of responsibility by the Pakistani authorities of the kind that we would expect in a serious situation such as this. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us what representations Her Majesty’s Government have …..." John Denham - View Speech