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European Union (Amendment) Bill

I always enjoy the speeches of the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash). He has been making largely the same case against Europe since the Maastricht treaty. I was not in the House then, but I heard similar speeches on the Amsterdam treaty, then on the Nice treaty. He is a man of integrity. He quoted John of Gaunt. I might quote the exchange between Hotspur and Glendower in ““Henry IV””, when Glendower says:"““I can call spirits from the vasty deep””" and Hotspur says, yes,"““But will they come when you do call for them?””" From the depths of his opposition to Europe the hon. Gentleman has over all my 14 years in Parliament—no doubt longer in his case—been sketching out the image of a Europe about to devour us, but of course it never happens. I gently and with some affection, as we are both interested in the subject, put to him that the treaty, if ratified tonight and then ratified in another place, will not so fundamentally alter our relationship with Europe. Europe, in the end, is organic; it is plastic; it is what we make it. He talked about a concrete straitjacket that was cracking like ““The Fall of the House of Usher””—he was taking me down literary highways and byways where I could not follow him. Europe is what the 27 sovereign national Governments decide to make it. The treaty of Lisbon—