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National Referendum on the European Union

I have listened to the debate for the past five hours, and it is clear that we on the Conservative Benches are all Eurosceptics now. I speak in this debate as a Eurosceptic, and I could not put the case against the EU better than some of my colleagues have. However, I will not be voting against the motion, because I believe that anger and frustration are not enough to form our considerations; we need a clear-sighted, clear-eyed strategy to move forward. Let me mention some of the considerations that we need to take. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) said—I paraphrase, probably poorly, in which case I am sorry—that we need to hold the Government's feet to the fire to ensure that something is done. However, we must remember that to lead the country on this issue we need to be a united rather than a divided party. In 2010, just 13% of voters described the Conservative party as divided, but at the height of the Maastricht rebellion 50% described us as divided. We can all stand for our principles and say that this is only about our consciences—or, as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) said, that nothing is more important, including the coalition—but we need to remember that in the reality of the political world, if we want to achieve something we have to balance those factors. We know from the 1997 election result that we need to be mindful of that. Why do I raise that point? Because when we were kicked out of office for being divided, we suffered the greatest setback in the European project. During those 13 years, the Labour Government opted into the social chapter, which was responsible for a lot of the regulations that have suffocated business and stifled growth, and in 2007 the Labour Government signed the Lisbon treaty. For all our high-minded principle in the mid-1990s, when we got kicked out of government because of division we set back our own project.