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European Union Bill

There is this version of Britain contra mundum—the 26 member states all ganging up against us. We have allies and friends, and we win arguments. The European Union is seen around the world as a model for open trade. Lorries leave Portugal and arrive in Poland. A lorry cannot leave Mexico with its Corona beer and unload it in San Diego; it has to unload it on to protectionist lorries controlled by trade unions in the United States. I put it gently to hon. Members that they should be careful before getting what they wish—the disaggregation of the European Union, with every country rejecting European Court of Justice decisions that they do not like. France believed that it was sovereign when it refused to accept a pound, or a kilo, of British beef, at the time when the whole world thought that the beef was contaminated. We could not export it to Australia, and Canada would not accept it. The Commonwealth would not have it. Hong Kong, our Crown colony, would not have it. But the European Union had to accept British beef because the European Court of Justice accepted our scientific arguments that the beef was fit for sale in the common European market.