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Treaty of Lisbon (No. 4)

I will in a moment, but I want to make a little progress first, to try to avoid the trap that the Secretary of State fell into. The Opposition seek to strengthen the Union in its pursuit of the single market, not, as the Secretary of State has suggested, to undermine that process. Nothing could be more calculated to damage the EU in the medium and long term, and to undermine the prosperity of the member states as they face the challenges of the 21st century, than the symbolic downgrading of the central place in the EU's structure of the open competitive single market. This Government stand accused of a sell-out of truly historic significance. It is a sell-out based not on malevolence, but on sheer incompetence. What we have heard today from the Secretary of State is a breathtaking dose of complacency and wishful thinking.