House of Commons Hansard Debates for 2 Dec 1992

Mrs. Currie : It is worth pointing out that we have lived happily for a very long time with the fact that Irish citizens can vote in all our elections and even become hon. Members. Perhaps my hon. Friend will explain to us what is so awful about the rights which are clearly set out under the citizenship articles and which are very simple : the right to vote and stand in local and European elections, the right

Column 324

to diplomatic and consular protection, the right to petition the European Parliament and the creation of a new ombudsman.

Sir Teddy Taylor : I hope that my hon. Friend will genuinely think about this. There is nothing wrong at all, if we want it, in saying that people should be able to vote in elections if they have a house here. An American, an Australian, a Pakistani or a Frenchman who has a house in Britain and pays local taxes should be able to vote in elections, and I have no objection to that. We can pass a law saying that they can do this. But we are not doing that. We are saying that if a Frenchman has a house in Derbyshire he can vote but an Australian or an American or someone else cannot. What can possibly be the logic of this kind of discrimination?

Mr. Tim Devlin (Stockton, South) : That is not actually true. Australians, Canadians and other members of the Commonwealth can vote if based in Great Britain.

Sir Teddy Taylor : My understanding is that a citizen of the United States is unable to.

The point that I am trying to make is that even if we wanted to sort this out we could do so quite easily by some little provision in British law. The key element of the citizenship Bill is not whether one can vote or petition an ombudsman but what is contained at the end of the section, i.e., the Council of Ministers having the power to strengthen and add to the rights laid down. There is to be a three-year review of one's citizenship duties. If we let this go through, every three years there will be a complete review of the position and the Council of Ministers will be able to add anything it likes to the duties of European citizens. Hon. Members have been told in the past that the common agricultural policy would mean fair prices for the consumer and the housewife, and we have seen what happened. Hon. Members were told that the exchange rate mechanism would guarantee growth and stability, and we have seen what happened. We have been led down the garden path time and time again. We are told that citizenship will mean only certain things, but it will mean more. Hon. Members must wake up to the fact that the introduction of European citizenship will mean the basis of a unitary state with European citizens and not the establishment of a federal Europe--that would be a step forward from what we have. I can never understand why the Government keep on saying that they will fight against a federal Europe to the bitter end ; a federal Europe would be a step forward. 7.15 pm

At least with a federal Europe some things would belong to us and some things to them. At present nothing is guaranteed for us at all, the way things are developing.

Mrs. Gorman : Is it not a fact that already, whether or not other Europeans can vote in our country, whether or not they pay tax in our country, they can come and live here and receive the benefits of the welfare system of our country ? It is possible for someone from Europe to retire to this country, never having contributed a halfpenny towards the taxes, and to draw income support and benefits which have been paid for by the British taxpayer.

Sir Teddy Taylor : My hon. Friend is absolutely right, as always.

Column 325

Mr. Devlin : It is completely unfair to agree with one hon. Friend who makes a contention like that and not agree with the other contention which is also true, that British citizens can go and live in Spain, Portugal, France, Greece or any other country and draw their benefits and pensions in those countries as well. A great number of my constituents are currently taking advantage of this.

Sir Teddy Taylor : I accept that my hon. Friend is a sincere person who has considered his views carefully. I hope that he will appreciate, with all these extra rights and entitlements, that if we had equal application of laws throughout a united Europe things would be much better for these people. Sadly, we do not have that equality of treatment. To illustrate what I mean, I ask him to look at agricultural policy and the way we have not equality but wide variation.

I ask my hon. Friends to look at the citizenship issue. It is not just a small question ; this is the big stuff. Listen to Bob Marley. It is all there. Perhaps hon. Members do not know that Bob Marley was a great singer, a Rastafarian, and some of his songs are the most wonderful one could have. One of them tells the whole story of what Government say to us year after year : please do not worry about anything because everything is going to be all right. That is what we have been told time and time again, and every time it has blown up in our faces. I say to those hon. Members who are not worried about citizenship that it does not just mean voting in council elections. I ask them to think about the three-year review and about the fact that the Council of Ministers will be able to act without limit. The Government may ask if we have no faith in them and in their ability to protect us, but that is not how the European Community works. The Government have to do nasty things to get agreement on other things. Hon. Members who doubt this should look at the 40-hour week directive. How many hon. Members know that we have already agreed that French bakers will be exempt but British bakers will not? Why? Not because we think it is sensible or right but because, in EC bargaining, one thing has to be given for another.

I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will think about this matter. There is no reason why they should or should not vote for the Liberal Democrats' amendment. It will make not the slightest bit of difference to anyone. It will have no impact, except that it might just make a money resolution possible.

I sincerely hope that, as they proceed through the Bill, hon. Members will think back to the Single European Act and all the pledges that were given, will think back to the treaty of Rome, and will think back to the time when the poor former Prime Minister was a great lady who said,"If you only give a wee bit more money to the CAP, we will wipe out all the mountains, we will start again, and the problems will not arise again." They are always going to arise. The people who suffer are not people such as myself--they are not politicians. The people who suffer are the ordinary people of Britain who have suffered hugely, who have lost jobs, and who have found that the economy is part of a declining area of the world. Europe's share of world trade is going down and down, the economies of Europe are going down and down, and the ordinary people of Europe are suffering. We have to find some other way out. The other way out for me is to say no to

Column 326

Maastricht and then, in respect of our present Prime Minister, to say, "Let us promote a treaty on real subsidiarity which would take powers back."

I am sorry that I have taken a bit longer than I expected, Mr. Lofthouse. You have seen that I was deliberately interrupted to try to keep the debate going. However, I should like to put across a simple message. Remember the threat to people, remember the injuries, and remember Bob Marley's song. If we remember that, we will remember that there is a big battle for the people of Britain, for democracy, for freedom and for liberty.

Mr. Benn : After listening to the past two days of debate, one thing has become clear in my mind, and that is that this issue divides every party and every country and could, in certain circumstances, realign British politics. That point needs to be made because, if anyone imagines that commitment to either side of the argument is shallow, he is quite wrong. There are some who are passionately committed to the federal Europe in its most unitary sense and always have been, and there are those--I am one of them--who believe that we are Members of Parliament only because our electors sent us to Parliament and that their rights must be paramount. They are very deep matters. The House of Commons is not the place to reach that decision.

After listening to the debate, with the many complex arguments--we have heard long and important speeches--it has become clear to me that those are matters that the public alone can determine.

I cannot see any reason for speaking in the debate other than to try as best I can to explore what the treaty means, to clarify its implications and to explain to the people who sent me here, in particular, what effect the treaty will have upon their lives and upon their future. I am here only because they have lent me powers, and I have no moral authority to give them away. I have told the Opposition Chief Whip that nothing in the world would alter my conviction, because one cannot ask an hon. Member to give away what he does not own. That is my position, and I say it in a way that I am sure the Committee will understand.

I am very glad that the Liberal Democrats have moved the amendment, because, whether people vote for or against it, it will make no difference ; it will be embodied in the treaty. Therefore, the Liberal Democrats' amendment has merely provided for us the opportunity to have an extremely important debate which had to be held, and for that we must be grateful.

Before we examine the question of European union, we should look at the position of the House of Commons in deciding how to deal with the Bill. Much will be made of the subject of ratification and of a money resolution, but the House of Commons has been held in check by the Crown. I am not talking about the Queen and the royal family ; I am talking about the Crown as a legal institution since the 17th century. It is important to understand that none of us can be Members of Parliament without taking an oath of allegiance to the Crown. I am a republican.

Mrs. Gorman : Yes.

Mr. Benn : When I went to the Table after the April general election, I said, "As a committed republican, I solemnly declare and affirm that I will bear faithful and true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, her

Column 327

heirs and successors according to law," because that was what my electors told me to say when they elected me. At the same time, that was the Crown.

I now refer to the treaty itself. The matter is not as obscure as it might have appeared when I tried to develop the argument. How was the Foreign Secretary able to go to Maastricht and sign the treaty? It was because he had the authority of the Crown to sign the treaty. The Queen had given plenipotentiary powers to the Foreign Secretary, so the treaty was initialled--it has not yet been ratified--by the Foreign Secretary under Crown powers. We are not even allowed to discuss the Bill without the Queen's consent--the Crown's consent--because it touches on the prerogatives of the Crown. I have introduced various Bills which touch on the prerogative, few of which have reached the statute book. I have had to write to the Home Secretary on each occasion and I have received letters from him saying that Her Majesty had graciously placed her prerogatives at the disposal of the House of Commons for the purpose of discussing this or that Bill. That is the next element of the Crown. Of course, if the Bill is passed, it will require the assent of the Crown--Royal Assent. We cannot have a referendum, we have been told, because the right to promote expenditure belongs to the Crown. That is why a money resolution cannot be tabled by a Back-Bench Member. Only the Crown, through the voice of a Secretary of State, can table a money resolution.

If the Bill becomes law, it will confer upon British Ministers greater prerogative powers in Brussels than they now have. Those laws passed by treaty-making powers of the Crown will be capable of wiping out legislation passed by both Houses of Parliament and assented to in a subordinate way by the Crown.

The hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) gave an example of legislation that had been overridden by Common Market legislation--I think that it was the Bank of England Act 1946. I give him another example. In 1945, just after the atomic bomb was dropped, the post-war Government, with general consent, passed a resolution saying that all atomic material, including uranium, found in Britain belonged to the Government. Of course, Euratom is a federal system. When I raised the matter with Commissioner Brunner I was told, "I am sorry, but the Atomic Energy Act 1946 has now been subsumed in Euratom. Everything that we now do in Brussels is done by the Crown."

The reason why the House of Commons is frustrated is that, in terms of legislation, we are back to where we were before 1649. [Laughter.] Conservative Members laugh. I was on the Council of Ministers for five years--I was once the president. Every time I assented to everything, I assented by the powers of the Crown. I am not trying to provoke anybody. I am trying to explain to people outside why the House of Commons is impotent in the matter. It is already impotent because of the treaty of Rome, but it is a fact that all laws that are made in the union--that is what it is--and made with the assent of British Ministers will represent a growth of prerogative power.

Before we consider what the union might do to us in terms of our system of government, let us realise what that enterprise has done to us already in a strictly domestic context. The House of Commons has passed over to the Crown the powers of law making which it won hundreds of years ago, for which there is no parallel. In the first years in which I was a Member of Parliament, as far as I could

Column 328

make out, there was no capacity for the Crown to make laws except within the very narrow domestic context as with security services, or whatever.

Mr. Richard Shepherd : When I catch the Chairman's eye, I hope to continue discussion of some of these points, but does the right hon. Gentleman accept that if the House of Commons votes down and damns this lamentable Bill, the treaty will be killed? Therefore, we can affect the use of prerogative power and the effects which the Government seek to bring about.

7.30 pm

Mr. Benn : If we defeat the Bill, we can prevent the extension of prerogative power ; but some of it has already slipped through our fingers, in 1972, without it ever being made explicit what was happening.

The last point that I make about Crown powers--I hope nobody will understand me--is that when Government Whips press Back-Bench Members to support a Bill, one weapon which they use is the granting or withholding of patronage under the powers of the Crown. I do not know much about the Conservative party, but I dare say that an elderly Conservative Member, planning to retire at the next election, might find it harder to have a peerage given to him if he voted against the Maastricht treaty, because knighthoods, baronetcies and peerages may be withheld according to the discipline of the Whips.

Indeed, for younger Members the prospect of getting a Crown appointment as a Minister of the Crown may be affected if there is disloyalty on the Maastricht treaty. I am told that in the Conservative party even an invitation to a royal garden party may be dangled or withdrawn if Members are not in line.

The point I am trying to make--and I am doing little more than giving an account of how this place works--is that when we look at a story from the beginning, through the legislation, through the ratification which is done by Crown prerogative, through to the pressure of the Whips, the Commons has never completed the work which it began in 1688. Therefore, for that reason if for no other, it is not a body capable of dealing with this act of union for which the Bill provides.

Mr. Garel-Jones : When the right hon. Gentleman was a distinguished holder of office under the Crown in the last, now distant, Labour Administration, had it become apparent to him at that time the way in which the Crown prerogative was being abused, and did he take steps at that time to make that known to his colleagues and try to rectify it, or has it become apparent to him, as it were, in later life?

Mr. Benn : The right hon. Gentleman invites me to make a speech twice as long as the one I intended to make. I was thrown out of Parliament by Crown prerogative. My father was made a peer, and when he died I was thrown out of the House because that prerogative had given me a peerage. The Speaker would not let me in. The right hon. Gentleman should not try to tell me that I just learnt this to make a speech tonight. That is an insult to me but also an insult to a life-long commitment to the democratic principle that I hope people accept.

Mr. Garel-Jones : I do not think anyone would put that in doubt. Indeed, the battle that the right hon. Gentleman

Column 329

fought in those days was admired and, I think, supported by some of my hon. Friends. The question that I was asking was about the time when he was a Minister of the Crown and was exercising Crown prerogative as a Minister of the Crown. That is the question to which I was seeking an answer. Certainly I would not seek to question the right hon. Gentleman's commitment to the democratic process. I hope he did not understand that in any way.

Mr. Benn : I do not know what the right hon. Gentleman meant. If I responded strongly, it was because of the suggestion that I was cooking up a phoney argument to promote opposition to this Bill. If the right hon. Gentleman really wants to know, when I was made a Cabinet Minister and a Privy Councillor, and saw the Privy Councillor's oath, it was so revolting that I asked not to have to take it. It pledged me to all sorts of things about foreign prelates and potentates. The right hon. Gentleman has probably seen it. When I went to the Cabinet Office and it was read to me, I said at the end that I had never agreed to it. The clerk to the Privy Council said, "You do not have to agree." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "I have administered the oath." I never knew that a Privy Councillor's oath was an injection. I did not want it ; I did not agree ; I got it administered, and all it does is occasionally, not always, give me a chance to speak in the House.

This is a point of substance. In 1968 I argued for a referendum. I may sound like Harold Wilson in remembering where it was, but it was at the Welsh conference of the Labour party in Llandudno. Some Cabinet colleagues demanded that I be dismissed from the Cabinet for mentioning a referendum. In the end I persuaded my party to go for it. My right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition voted for the referendum. The deputy Leader of the Opposition was a Whip who voted for a referendum. It all took time. We lost Roy Jenkins on the way. I do not know how to describe it, but he resigned because he did not want the public to be consulted.

I should like to come back to my line of argument, but I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that both on the renunciation of the peerage and on the referendum my commitment for many years has been that the people should decide who is to be their Member of Parliament and whether he should go.

Coming back to my argument, I can revert to my role as a lecturer for the Workers Educational Association. Let us look at what union would mean. There has been talk about citizenship and so on. Let me try to make it clear to those who might be watching the debate at home on television--the whole debate should be televised--that it makes a fundamental difference in the relationship between an elector and a Member of Parliament.

One reason that we do not have many riots in Britain is that people can have a say. Over many years I have said, "Do not riot ; vote. You can defeat the Government. In that way you can change policy and you will achieve what you want by peaceful means." People do not realise that democracy hangs on a very slender, delicate thread. If the link is broken and people realise that, no matter for whom they vote in an election, decisions will be taken by the European union, I do not say that they will riot, but we

Column 330

could not argue against action taken directly by them because there was no democratic route for the solution to their problem.

Mr. Michael Lord (Suffolk, Central) : Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one precious thing about the House of Commons is the way in which we as Members of Parliament can talk to our constituents when we are in our constituencies and come back the next week and get hold of Ministers to get things done? If we have a problem about, say, roads or hospitals, we can grab the Minister responsible and get something done. I represent an agricultural constituency. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, because our agricultural powers have been given to Europe, I as a Member representing farmers now have great difficulty in getting anything done for the people whom I represent? It goes exactly to the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making ; frustration builds up not just among Members but among constituents. In many ways I feel that I am unable to do the job that I was sent here to do.

Mr. Benn : The hon. Gentleman points to a problem that has already arisen deriving from the treaty of Rome, which I do not want to go into because we are discussing its extension. He is right. The work of Members in their constituencies is one of the most unreported aspects of an hon. Member's life. I do not know how many letters other hon. Members receive. I assume that we all get approximately the same number. If they were grossed up, we would find that hundreds of thousands of representations made to hon. Members are never reported because the media is not interested in democracy but only in politicians, which is a different speciality.

I have sat in Cabinets when papers have come from Ministers written by their civil servants. Other Ministers may say, "It may look good to the Department of Health but it would not deal with the problem that came up at my surgery last Friday." That relationship is important. It educates Members, and we represent our constituents' views.

Another point which has not been touched on is that, because of the way law making is done in the Community, even if it is by qualified majority, it is easy to make a law but there has to be the same majority or unanimity to repeal it.

For many years it has rightly been a principle of this House that no Parliament can bind its successors. In European union every decision binds its successors because one cannot change it. Even if a British Government were elected on the issue of repealing a piece of this legislation, prospective Members of Parliament would not be able to tell the electorate that they would repeal it because the mechanism to do so would not exist. European Community legislation is like a lobster pot--it is easy to get in but very difficult to get out.

I do not have to dwell at great length on the second aspect of the treaty as I have dealt with it already. The Council of Ministers is a Parliament and not a Cabinet--it makes the laws. It is the only Parliament in the world to meet in secret.

During the British presidency in 1977, I tabled a motion that the Council should meet in public. Ministers would have died rather than agree. They all went to the Council, saying that they were going to defend this or that. When they got there they did all the deals and did not want

Column 331

anyone to know what happened. It is as if this Parliament met in secret. From that point of view the Council is totally

undemocratic--but decisions made there by British Ministers are made by royal prerogative in any case.

The third difference is that between the elected and appointed part of our constitution. Anyone who has been a Minister knows that civil servants work to a Minister. They may be difficult, but one can tell them, "I want this paper put to the Cabinet."

At the Council of Ministers no one is allowed to submit a paper. Ministers can only act on the initiative of the Commission. I have sat on every committee that I can think of--from the local party to the national executive and the shadow Cabinet--but the Council of Ministers is the only committee where, even as president for energy, I could not submit a paper to the other Members because the powers of initiation are vested in the Commission. That will be a fundamental change and it is not altered in any way by the Maastricht treaty. At the Council, Ministers have to try to bully Commissioners who are appointed to submit a paper in the hope that their idea may come back before it.

Mr. Spearing rose --

Mr. Benn : I do not want to take too long, as I am trying to get a lot into one speech, but I shall give way.

Mr. Spearing : Is not that argument vital? It is an illustration of why so many of us say that the European Community is intrinsically authoritarian. The authority for any initiative lies with the Commission. Furthermore, it is important for title I, as in articles A to F, and the two pillars--home and foreign affairs--it is written in the treaty that the Commission shall be fully associated with these matters and has the duty of co-ordinating the totality.

7.45 pm

Mr. Benn : My hon. Friend is opening up the question very fully. It is true that the Commission has great powers. I shall give the House two examples. Viscount Davignon, who was the Commissioner for industry, and Guido Brunner told me, when I was an elected Secretary of State, that I could not insist that North sea oil be refined in Britain, and that that oil should come under the terms of the treaty of Rome. Secondly, I tried to continue a scheme introduced by the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) when he was Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, whereby he supported Scottish industries working in North sea oil --it got a slightly lower rate of interest. [Interruption.]

The First Deputy Chairman : Will those hon. Members holding a sub- committee on the other side of the Bar please hold it outside the Chamber?

Mr. Benn : That is subsidiarity at work--one just goes on talking and no one takes any notice.

The Commissioners told me that if I continued the scheme introduced by the former party leader they would take me to court--and they did. They chose polling day in 1979, when I was on my bicycle anyway. Do not think that the power of the Commission to initiate actions to frustrate an elected Government in Britain is not real--it is. I can imagine circumstances when a Government, elected by a huge majority--it does not matter of which party --to do something, did it and was

Column 332

then told by civil servants, "I'm sorry, Minister, what you are doing is illegal." What would happen if the elected Government were not able to carry forward their policy ? There would be a major constitutional crisis.

Mrs. Gorman rose --

Mr. Benn : I shall give way when I have finished the analysis. The treaty transfers power from politicians to the courts. In Europe, courts are different from those in Britain. They are political and do not pretend to be impartial, as they do here. The continental legal tradition is that law is a new way to implement constitutions and policies. Elected British Ministers could be taken to the court on citizenship, or on any other issue, and they would find that their power had been transferred--from the electorate and Parliament--to judges. Once one got into that situation, one would not be able to get out of it.

I am not misery-mongering, but trying to look ahead at the nature of the constitution and of the political crises that could lie ahead if we made such changes.

One only has to listen to some of the speeches on the issue to realise that the Bill is advocated by people of a managerial bent. I see myself as a representative : I am here to represent the people. I hear many of those who advocate the treaty say that they view the handling of Europe as the good management of Europe. They say that we must manage the exchange rate, trade, this or that. I have no doubt that most of them would be well qualified to be Commissioners. However, managers without consent never get very far, even in industry.

Those five changes in relationship--between the electors and Members, between Members and the Government, between the legislature and the executive, between the Commons and the Commission, between the political and judicial and the representative and managerial--are all inherent in the treaty. People must not merely troop in at the end of the Third Reading ; they must understand what the treaty is about. Because of the nature of the changes, I believe that the public and the electors, who put us here, must decide whether they wish them to be made.

Mrs. Gorman : The right hon. Gentleman has in part dealt with my point--which is that there is a fundamental difference in the way in which law is construed in this country. We have the common law, by practice, from the people and upward. The continental system is decided by codes and handed down from above, as the right hon. Gentleman illustrated. In our system of government we have a tradition of "by the people and for the people", whereas they have a tradition of government of the people. That is quite different from the way in which we view our citizenship.

Mr. Benn : If the hon. Lady heard what I said about the role of the Crown, she would realise that I do not share her view that we are very democratic ; but that is another matter. The continental system is different and the laws cannot be changed by the mechanism with which we have become familiar for many years.

Mr. Dalyell : I do not know whether it is a term of abuse, but I am surprised to be accused of being of "managerial bent". Does that bent also apply to the overwhelming majority at the Labour party conference?

Column 333

Mr. Benn : I shall come to the Labour party in a moment--I have to be delicate about it. If I had any doubt about my hon. Friend, it would be that his towering intellect may so induce him to observe the scene from the top that managerial ideas might enter into his mind, although I know that he is a good constituency Member of Parliament. To sum up, Bagehot, in his book on the English constitution, said that the Crown was the dignified and the House of Commons the effective part of the constitution. Now the Crown is the effective and the House of Commons is the dignified. Crown powers now determine our policy, but the Commons has all the glory of television, the Speaker and all the glamour of our debates. But we are simply performing a dignified function. That is the nature of the transformation that has taken place since 1972.

Mr. Hoon : My right hon. Friend rightly criticises the fact that only the Commission currently has the right to initiate legislation in the European Community. Does that mean that he supports the provision in the Maastricht treaty that enhances the European Parliament's ability to initiate legislation? Does it follow from his criticism that he wants the European Parliament to initiate more legislation in the future?

Mr. Benn : I want the Commission abolished, because no civilised democratic country would allow any power whatever to be in the hands of unelected people who cannot be removed. I have drafted a Bill, which my hon. Friend may have seen, called the Commonwealth of Europe Bill, under which we would have a secretary-general and would harmonise the 50 countries of Europe by consent through an assembly. The assembly would agree to conventions to which member states would adhere.

The United States would never agree to be governed by commissioners. If we were to have a fully federal united states of Europe, the first casualty would be the Commission, the second would be the Council of Ministers, and the treaty of Maastricht would be burned as the British flag was burned in 1776. So please do not tell me that the treaty is a route to democracy. It is a pathway back to the feudal past.

One of our difficulties is that all the party leaders agree about the Maastricht treaty. I realise that there is a difference on the social chapter and economic and monetary union, but if party leaders were in a Cabinet of all the talents, the Bill would go through in two minutes. The Labour leader would simply add the social chapter in the event of Labour winning an election, which is why the Opposition Front Bench is almost deserted. I think that the Opposition's tactics are to have a one-line Whip so that the Bill will go through with a Government majority. Otherwise, we would have a crowded Front Bench eager to hear my speech and make their own.

I must explore the problem raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) about the Labour party's position. If we are to explore how decisions are reached, I must explore with him how the Labour party's decision was reached. I am on the national executive and have been for longer than anyone in the Labour party's history. I voted against the manifesto at the March meeting because we were told that the party was in favour of the Maastricht treaty, despite the fact that it

Column 334

had not been signed at the time of the previous conference and had not even then been published in English. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) and I made no fuss, but voted against the manifesto, as the executive record shows. When I went to Chesterfield, I took the precaution of getting somebody to make a video of my speech explaining my view on Europe. I honestly do not believe that there is Labour support for the Maastricht treaty.

At the 1992 annual conference, a Bolsover delegate put forward a motion about a referendum. I argued for it at the conference and Alan Tuffin of the Union of Communication Workers argued and voted against it. I discovered later that his delegation had voted for the referendum.

If we are to discuss how Parliament works, we had better also discuss how the party works. The hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) may rub his hands, but the truth can never be harmful when we are discussing the future government of the country. I am lucky because I cannot be bullied by the Whips. If they offered me a peerage, they would be misjudging my ambitions. I do not need cash and will not get office. I am a free man. Had I known what fun it was to be 60 years old, I would have done it years ago. I intend to speak my mind. For me, the Bill is about whether we shall remain an imperfect democracy or become part of a Euro nationalism. Euro nationalism is being put around our necks under an authoritarian system.

Mr. Michael Carttiss (Great Yarmouth) : I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman considers himself fortunate in a way that I would not normally have done : at least he had a party conference at which the members of his party had an opportunity to debate the issue and reach conclusions. That is more than what happened to my party.

Mr. Benn : I once attended a Conservative party conference in 1955 for the BBC. Enoch Powell and I went along and I had a research assistant who is sitting behind me, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore). I have never forgotten the atmosphere, which was quite different from that of the Labour party. Nobody discussed politics after the conference had adjourned. They all put on evening dress and had dinner.

The First Deputy Chairman : Order. This is all very entertaining, but the Committee has sufficient problems without dealing with party mechanics.

Mr. Benn : I was responding to a problem put to me by the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Carttiss) about his party. I was trying to explain that it is an old problem.

I believe passionately in Europe. I lost a brother and many friends in the last world war and I share the view that Europe must get beyond nationalism. We must explore ways of co-operating. Europe contains 50 countries, not just 12. I want harmonisation to be at the pace of those who can go along with it, for a practical reason. It is already clear that, because of the existing Community institutions, when anything goes wrong people blame the Germans. It is the fault not of the Germans but of the treaty of Rome. There has been hostility towards the Italians. The awful wartime

Column 335

language spoke of the huns, the wops, and the Iti's, and, reading The Sun, one sees that we are not far from that now.

Democratic consent is delicate. Therefore, if we try to hurry beyond the capacity to absorb and accept the implications, I fear that the matter will end like Yugoslavia, which was an imposed federation, or the so-called "socialist camp" of communist countries, which was imposed. I know that it is not exactly the same, but the problems of unemployment are caused not by the Germans, but by the role of bankers in forcing down economic policy to the point where there is mass unemployment. We must keep our eye on the real issue and not allow it to degenerate into an attack on other nationalities.

Why have the British people allowed the treaty to go so far? I am no historian, but we were conquered by a Roman, Julius Caesar ; we were then conquered by William the Conqueror in 1066 ; James I was then brought down from Scotland ; William III then came over from Holland ; and George I, who was a German, then ruled. Indeed, until the first world war, the royal family was called Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. It changed its name to Windsor and got rid of some German dukes--the Duke of Cumberland was de-duked. I went into the matter to see whether I could get the same right. We now have a Prince of Wales whose father is a Greek.

Thus, we have as a nation been trained to accept that we shall be governed by other nationalities. Because of the defect in our democracy, Britain has a culture of subservience that makes us accept that Jacques Delors should have those powers. When Jacques Delors came to Britain, the BBC asked him whether we were good Europeans, bowing and scraping to him like the Dimblebys bow and scrape to the royal family. We are a nation trained to bow and scrape, so, naturally, when we are told that the Crown prerogative will ratify the treaty, people say, "How could we be unkind to the Queen Mother?", as if she were ratifying the treaty. It will be ratified not by the Queen Mother but by the godfather in No. 10. It is a matter of national confidence.

Hon. Members have asked how we can deny the Danes or other member states the right to the social chapter by voting against it. No rights were ever given to anybody from the top. All rights have been won. If the Danes want rights, they must elect a Government that will give them those rights and we should have to do the same. We sit at home watching "Newsnight" and Peter Snow with his ruddy computer and are told that Jacques Delors has given us social justice. That is absolute rubbish. All our rights, including the right to vote, to trade unions, to the welfare state and to full employment, were struggled for by our people using our mechanism.

8 pm

The idea that somehow the third world will benefit if we enter this arrangement is an illusion. It is not true, and it encourages the idea that we are no good. I have never believed in the conspiracy theory, but I do not believe that democracy is such a powerful force that some people have wanted to try to take it back. Not long ago the suffragettes had their problems. I put a plaque in the broom cupboard in the Crypt to the memory of Emily Wilding Davidson. There are no memorials in this place to the people who fought for democracy.

Column 336

The best way to get round democracy is to pass the real power to someone who is not elected and cannot be removed. This treaty is an anti-chartist, anti-suffragette campaign. We have been told for years that this nation is not good enough to govern itself, that it has to be governed from Brussels. We have been told that we cannot defend ourselves but must have NATO, and that we cannot organise our economy and must have the IMF. We are told that this is a nation of lazy workers--militant shop stewards, inefficient managers and football hooligans--a nation waiting for discipline. Of course, the discipline will come from Europe.

I apologise for making such a long speech, and I hope that no hon. Member will accuse me of trying to delay the debate. I genuinely try to argue without being offensive to anyone. These are big questions. I have spoken to Mr. Morris again about a referendum being paid for by the Community because we must find a way to give people that right. We are not entitled to decide this matter ourselves. If we do and people turn against the treaty, there will be no mechanism by which they could share the responsibility for a decision that affected their lives.

I beg all hon. Members--those who are for, as well as those who are against, the Maastricht treaty--to agree with the principle that the matter must be determined by everybody in our land. All the arguments could be taken to the people, and they are not so foolish that they could not absorb and understand them. We are talking about their lives, not ours.

Next Section

Home Page