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European Affairs

As we approach the 50th anniversary of the treaty of Rome, I would like to take the opportunity of adopting a landscape view, sketching out some of the implications to reflect the situation as we now find it. First, I am bound to say that disarray among member states is apparent not just in respect of Iraq a few years ago when the situation became terminal for foreign policy and defence, but in respect of institutional changes as promulgated by proposals for a European constitution. We have had the referendums in France and the Netherlands, which went against the constitution, and a series of other rejected referendums in Denmark and Ireland, for example, that have been reorganised—with a lot of threats and blackmail—in order to get the right result. Of course, one cannot do that with a country like France. I am certain that it would not happen in this country either, as it would be so alien to the British tradition that serious problems would be caused. Just from sketching out those indicative problems, it is quite clear that the European Union is not working. I am interested in which way the future Prime Minister—the present Chancellor of the Exchequer—is likely to go on this subject. Above all else, he is a pragmatist. It is possible to make inferences from the people intimately around him, from his first statement on the Bank of England, from the economic tests, from the direction in which he has pitched his economic policies towards a more transatlantic approach and from the views of commentators such as Robert Peston and Tom Bower. They all provide some indication that under the presidency—[Interruption.] That was a Freudian slip, as I meant the prime ministership of the current Chancellor. As I have made clear on several occasions, Conservative Members need to be aware that the Chancellor might do a mini-Peter Shore. My old friend, now Lord Shore, was a strong opponent of further integration. It would not be quite the same thing, but I believe that the direction is likely to be sceptical. I remember challenging the current Chancellor when he was the shadow Chancellor, accusing him of being in favour in principle of economic and monetary union. He said, ““Yes, I am””, but then he said, ““and I happen to agree with your Chancellor of the Exchequer””—namely, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke). Well, I think things have changed considerably since then and we need to be conscious of that change. I mention that because, fundamentally, any responsible Government have to look at the situation as it really is—and it is not working: Europe is not working. We also need to reflect on what Europe affects. Despite the desire of many people to shove some of this under the carpet, the reality is that in the real world the EU affects a vast amount of what goes on for our constituents. I would challenge anyone to try to tell me anything that it did not affect. That is all driven by a harmonised legal system and majority voting. As I said in an intervention, the Court of Justice carries with it a contradiction: in most cases people do not get what they would voluntarily want if they exercised their freedom of choice in the ballot box, by virtue of which they choose representatives in this Parliament, which legislates on their behalf. Yet we know perfectly well that, if hon. Members vote against a directive or a regulation in the European Standing Committee, which has happened on occasion, the decision is automatically overturned on the Floor of the House. The scrutiny process is wanting in many respects, and it is better than in most other member states. As I said in an intervention on the Foreign Secretary, the EU is undemocratic and unaccountable. There are ways to remedy that, and I need not rehearse my arguments on the supremacy of Parliament provisions that I proposed to the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill. I am very glad to say that Conservative Front Benchers and Whips agreed to support those provisions and went so far as to provide Tellers for what was a Back-Bench amendment, even though 50 hon. Members had signed up to it on the amendment paper. My amendment was pursued as an anchor in that Bill, which ranges widely across a raft of measures and many Departments, and it was followed up in the House of Lords by a whipped vote, when the Chief Whip and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lords went through the Lobby with many of our noble Friends. Although we did not win the vote in either House, the anchor that those provisions represent in sustaining the democratic principles on which Parliament is based is a matter for congratulation and applause for not only the Whips Office but the current leadership—provided, of course, that that anchor remains firmly fixed where it was in June. I should not like to see it dragged in any direction, and I would strongly advise the leadership to include it in the manifesto, when it comes. I have taken this overall position both on the landscape and on the principle of parliamentary supremacy, which is an essential issue not only for the House but for Europe as a whole. In fact, I would go further and extend the landscape across the whole globe. Given that many people have an aspiration for the EU to operate on the scale of 450 million people in sophisticated, industrialised countries, with new countries coming in because of enlargement, it is clearly a matter of vast importance that the system is truly democratic and truly accountable, and it is not. I need not rehearse all the arguments or mention the Court of Auditors reports, the failures of the European Commission periodically and the real problems that lie at the heart of the system, which needs to be reformed into an association of nation states. The system must be fully democratic, with co-operation where necessary, on the principle of subsidiarity—whatever that word means; it depends on whom one speaks to—and it must operate in a way that genuinely allows freedom of speech and the freedom of markets to be determined by freedom of choice. That must lie at the heart of the democratic system. Accountability ultimately depends on that freedom of choice.