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European Affairs

The Government have a very clear policy on the European constitution and I have set out in a written ministerial statement, agreed by the Government, the basic principles that will guide renegotiation. Again, that demonstrates the difference between us. As I pointed out to the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West, the Conservative idea of negotiation is to say no. That is the only policy that we have heard from them. In any negotiation—I have negotiated throughout my career, both as a lawyer and as a politician—it is necessary to accept certain parts of the subject on which one is negotiating. If one does not do so, one is not negotiating—one is simply sitting in a corner, isolated, with no one taking any notice. That is pretty much what the previous Government did, and that is why they failed to deliver for Britain—something with which the hon. Member for Stone used to agree.