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European Union (Amendment) Bill

I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman, as I think he knows, but the supremacy of European Union law on matters that are properly within the scope of EU law has been a feature of the European Community since before we joined it. It goes back for decades: it was not created or invented by the Lisbon treaty and it is not something that we are tossing away in 10 minutes or a few hours of debate. My objection to new clause 9 is quite simply that it seeks to reverse a central principle of the EU and our membership of it. Of course, that is precisely the view of the hon. Member for Stone, who does not believe that we should be a member of the EU, but I disagree. The British people voted to join the Common Market and now, through a series of treaty amendments—we should recall that the Conservative Government were responsible for the most important ones—it has become the European Union, which is not an issue that we should be trying to reverse. With those remarks, I hope that I have explained why I will not support this group of amendments, but I hope that the Government will seek to carry forward the intent behind new clause 5.