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Foreign Affairs and Defence

We are all allowed to have some progress in our views. For example:"““The EEC has pushed up prices especially for food . . . Above all, the EEC takes away Britain’s freedom to follow the sort of economic policies we need. These are just two of the reasons for coming out.””" That was the Prime Minister during the Beaconsfield by-election in 1982. We made it very clear at this election that we want to have a different relationship with the EU—a more flexible relationship—but to remain within the EU. That was extremely clear during the general election. We have to have a different relationship with a different EU because, over-burdened by parasitic bureaucracy, hard-working people across the EU are overtaxed, businesses struggle to compete and the cost of failure is paid for by the young unemployed of France and Germany and by the diminished potential of the next generation. The real problem of the EU is not that described the little Englanders—that Europe is too foreign—but that it is not foreign enough. The EU needs to be more outward looking and flexible, and should end its absurd obsession with uniformity, which causes unnecessary friction and time wasting.