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European Union (Amendment) Bill

The answer to the hon. Gentleman is simply this: the kind of Europe that he describes is not the kind of Europe that I witness. Although I have, for example, been in favour of enlargement—I never said otherwise—my problem, having voted yes in 1975 and, although I have now repented, having also voted for the Single European Act, is with the European Union as it is constructed. I do not have a problem with the kind of Europe that Winston Churchill advocated in his famous speech in Zurich in 1946, saying that we should be ““associated but not absorbed””. I believe in an association of nation states working within a loose co-operation that enables us to form alliances, but not within a centralising, European Court of Justice-dominated, supranational arrangement. In his diaries, de Gaulle wrote about his exchanges with Adenauer. He wrote that they agreed that they did not want their countries to be merged into a stateless institution. However, that is precisely what happened, and that is part of the problem. When de Gaulle came to this Parliament, he made a remarkable speech in which he confirmed what, to him, this country represented. He said, on 7 April 1960,"““This outstanding role in the midst of the storm””—" the 1940-45 storms—"““is owed not only to your profound national qualities but also to the value of your institutions…With self-assurance, almost without being aware of it, you operate in freedom a secure, stable political system.””" I think he was right. He understood what the problems were, which is why he took such a difficult position in the EEC. However, the history of de Gaulle, Adenauer and the rest is for another occasion.