European Affairs

Steve Baker Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) and then I must make a little progress.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend explain what effect registering the document at the UN has, and on what basis he says that any of this is legally binding?

[Mr Hammond]

I am not a lawyer, so it is not a question of the basis on which I say it is legally binding, but there has been a plethora of qualified legal opinion supporting the view that it is a legally binding decision. Registering it at the United Nations records it as a treaty-status international law obligation. The document will be taken into account by the European Court of Justice, whose own decisions in the Rottmann case have established that it must have regard to interpretative decisions by Heads of State and Governments. The document itself makes it clear that it is legally binding.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

rose—

[Mr Baker]

rose—

[Mr Hammond]

Let me make a little progress. The fourth area in which this deal delivers concrete change is in protecting us from political integration under the mantra of “ever closer union”. The British people have never believed in political union and have never wanted it, and now there is a clear and binding legal commitment to a treaty change to ensure that the United Kingdom will never be part of it. That is a crucial change that alters fundamentally the UK’s relationship with the EU, setting out clearly, in black and white, that the UK’s destination will be different from that of the rest of the EU.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

Let me first congratulate the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary on their speeches. I warmly congratulate the Prime Minister and his negotiating team on their courage and tenacity. I include especially my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe, who had to bear much of the heat and burden of the day. This was a remarkable achievement, and I wish it well. As the right hon. Member for Leeds Central said, it is now for the British people to have their say, and have their say they will.

This is the 70th anniversary year of Churchill’s speech on the cause of a united Europe at Zurich on 19 September 1946. It has always struck me as ironic that that speech has been claimed by both sides of the European argument as being some sort of holy grail. I am daily on the receiving end of some vile emails and whatnot from people telling me that I am a traitor to my grandfather’s memory.

[Mr Baker]

I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. May I say that although I disagree with him profoundly on this issue, I regard him with the utmost respect? He has held these views for a very long time with complete sincerity, and people disgrace themselves by their insults.

[Sir Nicholas Soames]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend.

Of course, Churchill’s was a speech of great prescience and great vision. It was also a speech of the most profound analysis. Unlike most other hon. Members, I would like to reflect at a little more distance on Britain’s experience of the European Union and, in particular, my party’s long-standing commitment to the European cause.

It is worth the House reflecting for a moment, Madam Deputy Speaker, on the tragedy of what Europe must have looked like in 1945. It is only the winking of an eye in terms of time and history. It was only 71 years ago that the Germans surrendered to the allies and signed the instrument of surrender. It was only 70 years ago that the Russians drew down the iron curtain on a broken and suffering eastern Europe. Behind that line, in the wicked grip of a ruthless regime, lay all the great capitals and states of eastern Europe—Warsaw, Prague, Berlin, Bucharest and Sofia.

Most of the rest of continental Europe lay shattered and broken, after six years of war, for the second time in 25 years. There remained a vast mass of bewildered human beings, who gazed forlornly at the wreckage of their homes, their nations, their lives, their families, their possessions and everything that they loved. But from that awful scene of desolation, sadness, ruin and despair a little over 70 years ago, something truly remarkable has been achieved, which has brought freedom, security and prosperity way beyond the dreams that anyone alive at the time could ever have contemplated.

Not only have the sovereign states of Europe risen, phoenix-like, from the ashes of two world wars, but they have created of their own free will a European Union of 28 members comprising the biggest and most powerful single market in the world—one of 500 million people—in which we travel with our fellow Europeans in prosperity and peace in an era of constantly expanding co-operation, prosperity, security, safety and freedom.

When the cold war ended and the Berlin wall came down on that glorious, cold 9 November 1989, the Warsaw pact collapsed into dust without a shot being fired. Most of the eastern European countries joined the European Union, and most of them also joined NATO. Indeed, only six countries that are members of the European Union are not members of NATO.

Why did they join? They did so because the Europe and the NATO that they joined were and are prosperous, secure and free, and they wanted as soon as they could to find shelter in the institutions that had benefited from a period of peace, stability, freedom and security unprecedented in 1,000 years of European history. They hoped that it would protect them from a still predatory Russia. There is no argument but that the EU was absolutely central to those developments, and it is a very great credit to our country that we should have played such a leading role in seeing all this through.

The European Union has achieved a very great deal, but it cannot and it must not allow itself any self-congratulation in these very difficult times. Although we can see that the ice has melted on the landscape of the second half of the last century, and that power in all its forms has shifted and is shifting rapidly and unpredictably, we know how inadequately most of the institutions of the European Union have coped. This must be remedied.

As we look across Europe at all the achievements it has to its name, the pervasive mood is one of insecurity, lack of confidence and lack of optimism. Those characteristics are not found only in Europe. The troubles of Governments everywhere speak to the anxieties of their electorates and, sadly, to the mistrust in their politicians, their institutions and their leaders. The public across Europe know only too well that the world of easy answers, instant solutions and declaratory statements is a construct of fools, politicians and the media. As power shifts so rapidly and unpredictably, one might almost believe that we are today at the start of a new history.

Nowhere are these difficulties, insecurities and lack of understanding more obvious than in this country of ours. I am always wary of trying to work out what Churchill might have thought today, because I think it is an impertinence to do so. The one thing I absolutely know is that as the world has grown bigger for Britain, the opportunities greater, the chances more glittering for our commerce and our people, so the people who practise politics and government in this country, and especially those who write about it, have a sadly cramped and limited view of Europe and the rest of the world.

In this campaign, one of our most important tasks—all of us, whatever side we are on—is to remind our fellow citizens that we share a region, a climate, much of our history and demography, our economic space and our culture with the countries of the European Union, something that Churchill pointed out very clearly in his Zurich speech. Our business corporations, our leisure time, our intellectual and cultural life are all intertwined with Europe’s. We face shared problems in endless comparable ways. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) rightly mentioned all the environmental issues on which Europe has been extremely effective.

However, our political and deeply shallow media do not engage with any of that, or, as the right hon. Member for Leeds Central pointed out, with the interests—vital to us—of our European partners, allies and friends. At least, that was the position until very recently. Now the media have finally woken up, like the great, slack monster they are, to the awesome prospect of combat, newspaper sales and competition as each side of the argument tries to persuade our fellow citizens of the right way.

I rejoice at the Prime Minister’s extraordinary achievement in Brussels, and I commit myself to making the same case to the best of my ability whenever I have an opportunity to do so. I am struck by the scale of support for the European Union from British commerce and businesses both large and small, and especially—in an important letter, published in The Daily Telegraph yesterday—from four former Chiefs of the Defence Staff and other former service chiefs, who drew attention to the great importance of the EU in the security sphere.

I believe that the case to remain is overwhelming on all fronts, but there is no point in pretending that the European Union does not face many major challenges that it has to find a better and more effective way of resolving. The refugee crisis, for example, has made the EU look deeply ineffective and purely reactive. It is clear that Schengen cannot survive without the most dramatic reform, and that the external borders of Europe need to be strengthened rapidly. None of us can feel happy that the European Union, which has brought such great stability to much of the European continent, now appears to be weak and uncertain. Its unpopularity matters, and it is damaging.

My hope is that our Government will seize the moment, and that, having rediscovered the great value of extremely energetic and skilled diplomacy, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Minister for Europe and others will really push ahead in the EU to drive—along with like-minded colleagues and friends—the big reforms that Europe must swallow. They will find willing friends who want to do the same. There is a huge agenda in which Britain can and will play a leading role. On economic reform, on security, on energy, on defence and on foreign policy, there are practical and radical steps that can be taken.

May I finally indulge myself, Madam Deputy Speaker, by recalling the end of Churchill’s great speech to the Congress of Europe in The Hague in 1948, remembering that the founding fathers of Europe, with a noble vision, built this astonishing edifice on firm and very lasting foundations? This is what Churchill said at that conference:

“A high and a solemn responsibility rests upon us here this afternoon in this Congress of a Europe striving to be reborn. If we allow ourselves to be rent and disordered by pettiness and small disputes, if we fail in clarity of view or courage in action, a priceless occasion may be cast away for ever. But if we all pull together and pool the luck and the comradeship—and we shall need all the comradeship and not a little luck…and firmly grasp the larger hopes of humanity, then it may be that we shall move into a happier sunlit age, when all the little children who are now growing up in this tormented world may find themselves not the victors nor the vanquished in the fleeting triumphs of one country over another in the bloody turmoil of…war, but the heirs of all the treasures of the past and the masters of all the science, the abundance and the glories of the future.”

Those of us who fight the good fight to remain will do so with confidence, but also with humility and profound respect for those who hold long-standing views that are very different from ours, and in the sure knowledge that this issue is about the fundamental place in the world, for a generation to come, of a confident, open, engaged, pro-European Great Britain. Faîtes courage!

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Evans]

I looked at both documents, and the funny thing is that about 98% of it was the same; they cut and pasted it and it was virtually the same document. I was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe at the time, and I remember European Commission officials telling us, “Don’t worry; it’s virtually the same document.” They had one message for the people of the United Kingdom and a completely different one for the European Union.

[Mr Baker]

It was a think-tank—possibly Open Europe—that made available a consolidated version so that one could see, by putting the documents side by side, that there were no substantive differences. The only purpose of that treaty was to get it through without asking the people whether they wanted it, and that, I am unashamed to say, was the trigger that brought me here.

[Mr Evans]

If Tony Blair thought that he was doing this project any favours by denying the British people a referendum, he was greatly mistaken. I think that the reason he withdrew the promise of a referendum was that he thought the British people would vote no. Ireland regularly has referendums on treaties, and it sometimes has a second one, but normally after another discussion with the European Union in which parts of the treaty are changed to make it more favourable to Ireland. Had we voted no to the Lisbon treaty, I suspect that there might have been a different project for the United Kingdom—a third way, to use Tony Blair’s favourite phrase—in a more associative relationship with the European Union, based more on trade than on the political entity that we know a number of European Union leaders want. I think that Tony Blair did this project no favours whatsoever.

I will vote to leave the European Union because I love my country, but I respect those who will vote to remain, because they love their country too; both sides believe that they are acting for the betterment of their country. My grandfather fought in the first world war and my father fought in the second world war, and they did so to give democratic rights to countries within Europe, and indeed across the rest of the world. Devolution is a keystone of British policy, bringing power closer to the people, but I believe that the leading elites of Europe might as well be from another planet. Most normal people in this country, and indeed across the rest of Europe, cannot name a single member of the Commission. We have scores of these faceless governing elites, many of them on salaries way above the Prime Minister’s.

That reminds me of this great red card that we have been told will allow us to stop legislation we do not like, so long as we join together with another 14 countries to block it. The idea was ridiculed by William Hague in this Chamber when it was first suggested. Even if the legislation we were trying to block proposed the murder of the first born, he argued, we would be unlikely to get 14 other countries to come together in the timescale that we would be given. Remember what happened—this is a measure of how influential we are in the rest of Europe—when we tried to stop Juncker becoming President. We went on a great salesmanship deal throughout the rest of the European Union, and how many countries did we get to support us? The answer is one—Hungary—out of 27.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

When was it ever said of the great figures of history that they learned to suffer tolerable evils and irritations because they thought change too difficult. That is not the tone of the great history of mankind that has led us to this place; it is the creed of slaves—the tone of failure—but it characterises the Government’s position and the campaign we are being offered by Britain Stronger in Europe.

We have chosen to place before the public an historic decision that will stay with us for generations, and it should be taken in a way that reflects the tone of my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames). While I may disagree with him, his speech at least had the merit of being a great speech by a great man, and it deserves to be remembered by history, if I may say so—unlike the rest of the remarks we have heard.

In that respect, I have to say that I listened to the Foreign Secretary’s speech with dismay, as he started once again by listing all his misgivings about the European Union and all the problems with it. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills would expect me to mention the article he wrote in The Mail on Sunday, in which he said:

“It’s clear now that the United Kingdom should never have joined the European Union. In many ways, it’s a failing project, an overblown bureaucracy in need of wide-ranging and urgent reform.

Had we never taken the fateful decision to sign up, the UK would still, of course, be a successful country with a strong economy...That’s why, with a heavy heart and no enthusiasm, I shall be voting for the UK to remain a member of the European Union.”

I am deeply fond of my right hon. Friend, but that is not the tone I wish my country to follow at this time or the picture I wish to be placed before the public.

What is at stake in this debate is not whether we co-operate with the nations of Europe, but the basis on which we co-operate with them and with the world. Healthy co-operation is voluntary—I believe in that most strongly. Human prosperity, fulfilment and dignity are all underscored by liberty, and another name for liberty is self-government. That is what I came here to deliver—the ability to have the dignity of determining our own destiny at the ballot box. That is the great gift that we should hand on to our children. Whenever somebody says to me that we should remain in because we must think of what we hand on to the next generation and the one after, I always think that the great gift that history has shown we must always hand on to the next generation is the gift of parliamentary democracy and self-government, which lead to the flourishing of liberty, prosperity and humankind.

The terrain of this debate and the polls are leading to a real problem for what I will call the pro-EU BSE campaign, for the sake of brevity, and the Government. This recalcitrance is doing no good for our own country and no good for the nations of Europe. I do not have time to critique each detail of the Government’s position. Suffice it to say that when one finds oneself listening, as I did—like many Members, I am sure—to the presenter John Humphrys on the “Today” programme asking, in a sarcastic aside, “Are we still calling this a renegotiation?”, then one knows the jig is up. The Government’s position is not a fundamental renegotiation; it is a trivial one. Some of the benefits are worth having—I hesitate to say that they are not worth having—but they are marginal at best. When the front cover of The Week shows the Prime Minister pulling a tiny white rabbit out of a hat, we know the jig is up. When The Spectator shows the Prime Minister with a food tray, lifting the lid with glee and finding a tiny morsel on the plate, we know the jig is up. I am afraid that this renegotiation is a laughing stock, and it is doing the Government no good whatsoever to present it as anything other than a trivial set of changes.

We have ended up talking about whether the deal is binding. We are indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) for putting contrary evidence before us. I think it is fair to say that claiming that this deal is legally binding is to torture the English language in a way that only qualified lawyers are capable of doing. It is ridiculous to claim that it will materially affect the trajectory of our membership. It is largely symbolic—the word that was used to me by some continental politicians who visited to hear my views.

This is a shambles, if I may say so. It is not merely a shambles—it is becoming a rolling fiasco as day after day the Government lurch from one position to another trying to defend their renegotiation. We had the shambles of General Sir Michael Rose saying he had never signed up to a letter; he was in fact taking a contrary position. The Government claim the deal is legally binding and we end up going to and fro, potentially even creating a constitutional crisis in relation to the Secretary of State for Justice. Of the third of FTSE 100 companies who signed the letter about jobs, it turns out that 36 of them received €120 million in grants from the European Commission and spent €21.4 million lobbying the EU. That is all very well for them, but not so good for the small company in my constituency that was very nearly forced out of business because of ridiculous REACH regulations brought forward, no doubt, by companies that were able to lobby in this way.

I will not return to the remarks I made on 2 February, which my right hon. Friend the Minister will remember—I do not wish to be so crass once again—but this deal still stinks; I will leave it at that. Instead, we need the candour to set before the public that what they are being asked to do is to choose to remain in a substantially unreformed EU based on the Lisbon treaty, which our party opposed for good reason. At least let us have an honest debate that says, “Do you wish to surrender your self-government into this political project or do you wish to govern yourself?”

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lidington]

My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is meticulous in his courtesies to this House, but sometimes Secretaries of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs have to deal with extremely urgent matters to do with this country’s national security.

I want to single out the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), as anybody who heard it, whichever side of this argument they stand on, will remember it as one of the great parliamentary set pieces of their years in this place.

I do not want to dwell at length on the arguments about renegotiation, because my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister went into them in great detail and answered questions about the subject for three hours on Monday. I simply say that I have sat through a fair number of these debates in the last six years, and I will be the first to say to my hon. Friends the Members for Wycombe (Mr Baker) and for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) that they are models of consistency in their opposition to British membership of the European Union. If the Prime Minister had come back from Brussels brandishing the severed heads of the members of the European Commission and proceeded to conduct an auto-da-fé in Downing Street of copies of the Lisbon treaty, they would still be saying, “This is feeble, insufficient, not enough.”

[Mr Baker]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Lidington]

No, I want to deal with what the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) said, as he raised some serious issues about the impact of a British withdrawal upon the devolved Administrations, particularly, but not exclusively, Scotland’s. It is for the Government of the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom being the member state party to the treaties, to decide whether to trigger an article 50 process after such a referendum result. But he is right to say that there would be some pretty complicated outworkings of British departure from the EU for all three devolved Administrations and for the United Kingdom and English statute book, because a fair number of Acts of Parliament reflect European law as it has developed over the past 40 years. Those things would have to be gone through, both in the two years’ negotiations following the triggering of article 50 and, I suspect, in the years subsequent.