House of Commons Hansard Debates for 28 Jan 1993

Sir Teddy Taylor : The Home Secretary is trying to answer my questions with his usual insults. First, he says that I voted for the Single European Act, which I did not ; then he says that I was not here, whereas I have attended regularly. Why did the Home Secretary not answer my question? I hope he will think about that. I said, "You are forcing us to use a common form. What is the advantage? What benefit will there be?" Apart from flinging insults, which seems to be his normal style when dealing with serious and important issues, the Home Secretary has not given one reason. I hope that the House-- Mr. Stuart Randall (Kingston upon Hull, West) rose

Sir Teddy Taylor : Perhaps the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West will give us a reason.

Mr. Randall : One good reason is that in order to detect crime one needs information, and to obtain that we need computer data bases. One of the key requirements for that is to have information in a common format, so as to put it into the computer systems. That can be used to target crime of all kinds.

Sir Teddy Taylor : The hon. Gentleman may be misleading himself. Everything can be put into computers whether the same forms are used or not. If someone is interviewed and asked, "Do you want a visa?", the same information can be included anyway. I believe that the hon. Gentleman is making a mistake. He thinks that we shall have a common format for applications. No, there is no suggestion that we shall have the same application form, or that everyone will answer the same questions--so the information will not fit into the computer at all. The French may ask different questions.

Mr. Richard Shepherd : There is a reason, and it runs right through the whole scope of the treaties--to give visible expression to the Euro- state. We have seen that with passports--that was supposed to be a trivial matter, too--and now we see it in the form of a common visa certificate. We are seeing the standardisation, harmonisation and aggrandisation of the concept of the Euro-state.

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Sir Teddy Taylor : My hon. Friend watches such developments, and he has hit the nail on the head. We find that almost everything being done now, in Maastricht and elsewhere, has the purpose of establishing the concept of a European state.

Something even more significant is involved here. Article 100c goes even further than the Home Secretary said. Time and again I have asked--

Rev. Ian Paisley (Antrim, North) : The Home Secretary has just told us that the matter of the visas is not a big thing. However, his predecessor said the exact opposite. The previous Home Secretary said in the House :

"In the event, as the House will know, only two immigration matters will be taken into Community competence ; first, a substantive one". And what is that substantive matter? It is the very matter that the present Home Secretary now dismisses as nothing :

"--the common visa list--which is the agreement on the countries whose nationals would require visas for entry to the Community : and secondly, the more technical question of the format of a common visa."--[ Official Report, 2 March 1992 ; Vol. 205, c. 26.] The previous Home Secretary considered those substantive matters, but now when the hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) tries to argue about them they are dismissed.

Sir Teddy Taylor : The hon. Gentleman has raised an important issue. I want the Committee to remember that I have asked the Home Secretary and the supporters of the Bill what possible benefit of any sort will come from what appears to be a significant change--the use of the same form with the same words--and we have had no answer at all.

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Sir Ivan Lawrence (Burton) : I do not know whether this would be considered a benefit, but if there is a standard form of words, giving a standard form of rights to the visa holder, the matter will be construed and interpreted by the European Court of Justice. Once that happens, our present power under British law to restrict the people coming into this country would no longer exist as a power that we can exercise through the British courts as the final arbiter of rights. Instead, the European Court of Justice would arbitrate. That is a wonderful example of the way in which we are letting power slip away from the nation state to the European Court of Justice, which has repeatedly said that it is the creature of the union. That is what I believe my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East really fears.

Sir Teddy Taylor : My hon. and learned Friend is so right. I hope that hon. Members will listen to every word that he says. We are doing something stupid, bureaucratic, nonsensical and

unnecessary--unnecessary, that is, unless, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) said, the single form is required because it will carry single benefits and single entitlements and rights. My hon. and learned Friend hit the nail on the head. I am sure that he is right. But if he is not, no other reason has been put forward.

The Home Secretary says that we should not worry about article 100c because there is nothing much in it. Yet we shall pass over to the EC--by majority voting, after 1996--the right to decide which people need visas. That is

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supposed to be of no significance. They will be sitting around the table--let them decide by majority voting. Well, I believe that it matters quite a bit.

Until now this country has decided which countries we wish to be subject to visa requirements. We have taken into account all kinds of considerations. With the Caribbean, for example, the considerations have included our long- standing friendship, and the Commonwealth connection. One of the other countries affected will be the United States of America. At present we do not need visas to go there, and a lot of us think that that fact is important--some may think that it is not--for establishing the continuing bonds between Britain and the United States. The plain fact is that after 1996 that will all be scrapped. The Home Secretary may say that I am talking rubbish or nonsense, or being silly, but I beseech him to look at the list. I happen to have a copy of the list of proposals published by the Schengen countries. No doubt the Home Secretary will say that that will be different from the EC list, but the Schengen countries are substantial, and following their discussions they published a list. We also have the Government's list. If we look under the letter B we discover that the proposals involve visas for countries such as Bahrain, Belize and Barbados, which are not on the list of countries for which we now require visas. Those are just three countries, but they are rather important ones.

Hon. Members should be aware that after 1996 it will not be the Government who determine the places where visas are required. If a majority of EC countries say that they want or do not want visas for certain places, there will be nothing that the House of Commons can do about it, even if 630 Members say, "This is shocking. We do not want a visa for that country", or "We do want a visa for that country." Our wishes will be irrelevant and powerless.

Maastricht is clearly the end of the road, but the prospect of the powers of the House fading away would not matter so much if they were going somewhere over which the people had some control. That would not matter two hoots.

Mr. Marlow : My hon. Friend is making a great issue of the idea that once we have surrendered powers to a European institution we cannot get them back. If it were unanimously decided that we should transfer the items under article K.1(1) to (9) to Community control, and then we ratified the transfer in the House of Commons after a debate, or a late-night vote, would it not be open to the House at a later stage to take those powers back by holding another debate, and another vote?

Sir Teddy Taylor : I cannot reply to that question in detail, because much wider issues would be involved--the same issues that are involved when people ask, "Can Parliament pass a law to withdraw from the EC?" To answer that question would be to stray from the debate. But I can tell my hon. Friend that the only case law on the subject involves Greenland, which was linked to the EC, as we all recall. The only way in which Greenland could get out of the EC, after an election, was not to pass a law in the Greenland Parliament, but to ask all the member states to pass a law allowing Greenland to leave. I do not want to go into that big issue now, but my hon. Friend should

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be aware that there is a great difference of view on whether Britain would have that right. I think that we would not. I do not think that it would be possible for Britain to withdraw from the EC or any of the obligations unless every other state passed a law to allow us to do so. That is the view that I have always taken, and if there is any doubt about it, Greenland provides the example. The other countries had to pass a law, and Greenland had to give up many of its fishing grounds, which it greatly regretted.

Apparently, the first aspect does not matter at all, because the Home Secretary could not give us a reason for it. However, the second aspect is rather more important, and I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will accept that. If, for reasons of friendship or co-operation, for the sake of improved relations, or because of an emergency, we wanted to operate a regime between us and another country whereby visas would not be needed, we should no longer have that power. It would have gone. If we do not like what the Europeans do by majority vote, too bad.

What about the people of Britain ? If we introduced visas for the United States, some of them might be angry. They might send letters to their Members of Parliament ; they might demand a debate in the House of Commons. They might even take the matter into account in an election--but what is the point ? Their views do not matter, and they will have no influence on these events at all.

This is an important democratic issue. Hon. Members will recall that higher interest rates were forced on us by the exchange rate mechanism, despite mass unemployment in this country--

The Chairman : Order. The hon. Gentleman is developing his argument extremely widely now.

Sir Teddy Taylor : I shall come to my final point then, Mr. Morris.

The Home Secretary says that there is nothing much to these matters. He is sure that the lists will be drawn up by sensible people in a way that we will like. The fact is that that may not happen. I plead with him to remember what happened with article 8a. We know that the Commission takes a view of that article wholly different from the Government's. The Home Secretary said in a statement issued in September 1992 :

"Nothing has been decided and there is much more work to be done. We agreed that our officials should continue to work on the details."

Article 8a means the abolition of frontiers, just as I said that it would at the time of the Single European Act. It is not just a matter of people being able to visit Britain after having obtained a visa for Italy. Everyone will have the right to reside or visit. We should remember the number of refugees in Germany--they will all be able to come here, without restriction. That has not happened yet because it has not yet gone to the court. The Home Secretary has had discussions with Mr. Bangemann, and although he is no longer in his post, someone else is, and it is hoped that something will be done. We have all heard about the waving of passports, known as the Bangemann wave. If we lose the case at the court, all our discussions about controls will fade into insignificance. People wanting to come to this country will need no visas if they come from any other European country.

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We know that the Italian controls are practically non-existent and that Greek controls--apart from at Athens, where they are tight--are limited.

Although the Commission has threatened us with proceedings in court, it has apparently now agreed not to go ahead pending discussions. Still, I believe that individuals could take us to court. If they do, it will be catastrophic. Perhaps then the people of Britain will realise that our controls have gone. The Home Secretary is well aware that that could happen, but he will say that he hopes it will not. All this arises out of article 8a, even though we were told at the time that there was no need to worry about it--that we would still have complete control over immigration. I ask the Home Secretary to acknowledge that this House has been misled time and again. Anyone who says that article 100c will not inevitably lead to

visitors--unless they are identified beforehand as terrorists--being able to enter this country from every other European country is kidding himself. The Minister has told us not to worry--that the article does not entail that at all. The Minister will say that someone visiting France on a visa will not be able to get into Britain automatically. What should I tell people who want to visit Britain after 1996? Should they go to the French embassy and ask for a visa? Should they also go to the British embassy and ask for one? The implications of the common visa and of the wording of the treaty as it touches on common external frontiers are clear. The Government say that they reserve the right to refuse people entry if they are criminals or terrorists. If the Minister thinks that article 100c does not matter, I ask him to look back at 8a.

I know that the Home Secretary has been through the nightmare of discussions with Bangemann and others. All this is very frightening, after all. What is proposed is dangerous, silly, damaging to our democracy and potentially damaging to the good race relations that we have in this country. The measure is unclear and imprecisely worded--and it carries with it the same sort of dangers that we said would arrive in the wake of article 8a and the Single European Act.

Mr. Ken Livingstone (Brent, East) : I am delighted that the Opposition have tabled an amendment to delete article 100c. We need to stop beating about the bush. Article 100c exists to keep black people out of Europe--and to keep Arabs and Russians out of Europe. The intent behind it is racist, and it will create an operational structure that is racist, building on trends that already exist. That is why I am proud to go into the Lobby to vote against this racist measure, and to join my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) in so doing.

Mr. Calum Macdonald (Western Isles) : How does my hon. Friend square what he has just said with the argument of the hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) that article 100c would allow an influx of people to the United Kingdom? Who is right and who is wrong about the significance of 100c?

Mr. Livingstone : It would certainly allow anyone in Europe to come here--that is the fear that seizes some Conservative Members. Large numbers of Germans, for instance, might want to come here. Why Germans would want to come and enjoy our lower standard of living is beyond me. It is of course inconceivable that anyone on benefits in Germany would want to come here to increase

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his standard of living. This is not really about what happens inside Europe : it is about creating a barrier around Europe. It is a move towards fortress Europe, and the people who will suffer are those outside it.

I am always amazed by the naivety of so many Labour federasts, who keep pointing to all those dreadful Tories who pass all this awful racist legislation but who believe that, as soon as Maastricht is in place, everything will be wonderful and all the wicked legislation will be overturned. There are historic trends towards racism in Europe, and this House has pandered to them under Tory and Labour Governments--and Maastricht panders to them further.

Mr. Bill Walker : If the fortress Europe that the hon. Gentleman envisages become reality, is it not possible that people from South Africa who may want to come here if life gets extremely difficult there--I have written letters today about the grandchildren of Scots who want to return here--may be kept out?

Mr. Livingstone : Defending white racists from South Africa who deserted this country for a better standard of living from the efforts of black people and who think that they should be welcomed back here with open arms will not be top of my list of priorities for the rest of this decade. They made their bed ; now they must lie in it.

Mr. Walker : The Scottish missionaries will be delighted to hear what the hon. Gentleman has just said.

Mr. Livingstone : I must tell--

Mr. Max Madden (Bradford, West) : Does my hon. Friend agree that the 8 million or 9 million British citizens living in Commonwealth countries would experience little difficulty returning to any member state, including the United Kingdom? He is absolutely right to say that this provision is about creating a fortress Europe to ensure that as few black and Asian people as possible are allowed in. Is it not also deeply offensive that the 8 million non-EC nationals, predominantly black and Asian, will face grave difficulties in exercising their rights to free movement within the EC under this measure?

Mr. Livingstone : That is a worrying point. Black British people who travel to Europe are often already subject to appalling harassment by the French police as soon as they get off the boat. In the delegation that went to lobby on these matters at Maastricht, white British people were allowed straight through without being harassed, but even in Maastricht itself black Labour party members demonstrating against the treaty were subjected to considerable harassment. One of the problems as we move inevitably towards European union is that, although I am critical of the inadequacy of Britain's race laws, they are infinitely superior to anything on the stocks in Europe. Black Britons will find themselves disadvantaged and discriminated against in Europe on a scale that they thought they had got over in Britain.

Mr. Bernie Grant (Tottenham) : What is even more outrageous is that, in discussing Maastricht and all its industrial political and economic ramifications, the British Government have not even thought about the effect of the treaty and the Single European Act on black British citizens. Is that not a dereliction of duty?

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5.30 pm

Mr. Livingstone : My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The interests of black Britons have been left completely off the agenda in all these discussions and negotiations.

Mr. Macdonald : I do not understand my hon. Friend's argument. Surely black British citizens face great difficulty when they visit the continent because they have to deal with all sorts of passport controls. The whole point of the legislation is to remove those controls and make it illegal for them to be harassed when they try to enter other countries.

Mr. Livingstone : I was speaking not only about black British people being harassed at passport control but about the people who accompanied my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Grant) who led the activities in Maastricht. Those people were harassed on the streets by the police zeroing in on them. Most of the other European countries have not given their immigrants equal rights. They have not given them the vote or protection.

One of my closest colleagues went to lecture to West German Social Democrats shortly before unification. The lecture and the debate was about what parties of the left should be doing for women. My colleague asked those who were, I suppose, the most progressive members of that party, the sort of people with whom we find ourselves in agreement, what programmes they had instituted for Turkish women who were living there, some of them for 20 to 30 years. The reply was, "We don't do anything : they will be going home one day." That is how much further many of our European partners have to go to catch up with even the limited anti-racist measures in this country. My hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) made a brilliant speech. I do not think that he could see the approval, the absolutely elated look, on the faces of Home Office civil servants in the Box behind the Chair. They were nodding enthusiastically as my hon. Friend gave the most clear exposition of Government policy that we could have heard. The Home Secretary was nodding. He was clearly delighted, because, as he has told us, he has not read the treaty and could not have done anything like as good a job as my hon. Friend. One almost had the feeling of watching an American gangster movie in which Mr. Big sits and beams with delight as his bright young protege announces some new way of ripping off society and making them rich. It was like coalition government, and a perfect defence of the Government's position.

Mr. Blair : My hon. Friend is ribbing me for agreeing with the Home Secretary. How does he feel about being in agreement with the noble Baroness Thatcher and the hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor)?

Mr. Livingstone : My hon. Friend would find it interesting to go to the Library and look at the volumes of Hansard containing the debate on the Bill dealing with Kenya Asians in 1968. That was one of the most disgraceful periods in Parliament's history : overnight, after a wave of hysteria and racism in Britain, we stripped black British citizens of their right to come to this country. The legislation was overwhelmingly carried. Who was in the Lobby against it? There was a handful of left wingers and some honest right-wing Tories who thought that it was a disgrace.

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Sir Teddy Taylor : Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the intervention by the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) was sickening and irrelevant to the important issue? Although he and I fundamentally disagree on almost every political issue, at least we both believe in the preservation of democracy. That is what is important.

Mr. Livingstone : Another consensus on the Front Benches is to make the whole debate so obscure that the British people do not know what is happening. That is why they are united on not letting the British people choose.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield spoke glowingly about the way that the Danish Government had consulted their people. He took so many interventions from my hon. Friends that he could not fit mine in. I wanted to ask why he spoke so glowingly of the Government of Denmark trusting its people when our Front Bench lines up behind the Government in an agreement not to trust the British people. If the treaty is so wonderful, why can the British people not decide on the issues?

Mr. Marlow : The hon. Gentleman may have one view on immigration policy--that is his privilege--and I may have a totally different view ; I presume that is my privilege. We might vehemently disagree with each other, but the one thing on which we totally agree is that immigration policy should be decided in this Parliament.

Mr. Livingstone : I do not want to break this bipartisanship, but at the end of the day I am not terribly concerned about where it is decided. My concern is to defeat racist immigration policy. Therefore, I would have voted against all the immigration measures of the past 30 years, and I shall vote against this measure, because it will make it even more difficult for black people to get into this country. If I thought for a minute that the Maastricht treaty was progressive, I would vote for it, but I did not enter politics to vote to give bankers the right to run Europe.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke : Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would clearly explain the coalition between himself and some of his hon. Friends and what he called the honest right wing of the Conservative party. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) has said that he is against article 100c because it takes away our right to exclude people from this country and would open the door to unlimited immigration. The hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) says that he is against 100c because it is designed to exclude black people who would otherwise come here.

If either of them looked at 100c, they would see that it does not bear at all on the right to decide who comes to this country or on immigration control. Could they agree that one of them must be wrong? What is the reason for the objection to 100c that this hard-left, hard-right coalition somehow agree to see between the lines?

Mr. Livingstone : Not only does the Home Secretary not read the Maastricht treaty : he does not listen to his colleagues. They object because they believe in the nation state and in the right of the British people to determine these matters. I oppose it because I am opposed to racism wherever it raises its head. Those are the issues that will put us in the same Lobby.

When someone is in the Lobby only he knows why he is voting that way. I do not have the slightest qualm about

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that. I have found myself in the Lobby with the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) on one or two occasions, but I imagine that neither he nor I would wish to tell our constituents too much about that. We were there because we believed that something was wrong. The reasons were irrelevant, because at the end of the day what matters is how one votes. I am voting against 100c because it is racist, and that is it.

While listening to my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield, I was struck by the number of times that I have been involved in debating about high principle and policies and been carried away by it all. I came out thinking that I had achieved something, but six months later I asked myself, "What has happened to it? How was it translated into reality?"--because that is a different matter. I have sat on committees that took decisions which we thought were great, but a year later nothing had filtered its way down through the dross. Our debates in Committee have to be considered in the context of what is happening outside, who administers the policy and who makes the day-to-day decisions. How will the immigration officer interpret what we say against the long background of tradition on how we approach these matters?

I am not happy with the origins of the measure. Many of my more naive colleagues pop up and down at party meetings and speak about awful happenings at Trevi, saying that this legislation will drag them all out into the open. It will not. Nothing in the treaty will bring Trevi decisions into the open so that they can be debated in Parliament, and to imagine that that will happen is an illusion. The treaty will legitimise what is discussed in private in Trevi. In effect, the situation is worse, because the structure includes the Schengen group, which has its own tightly defined agenda. Its members also attend Trevi meetings and dominate them.

People in the Labour party have been complaining for years that a party within a party can have disproportionate effects. That is why Militant was expelled. Half a dozen people can agree in private and dominate a bigger meeting because they work together. That is happening in Trevi. The reality is that, if there was anything of which the Government could be proud, they would publish it. What happens at Trevi? Representatives from each of the Twelve sit around and decide how to keep people out of Europe. They work out which country has the most restrictive policy to keep Arabs, for example, out of Europe, and they all adopt it as the norm. They work out which has the most restrictive policy to keep people from the Caribbean out of Europe, and they all adopt it as the norm. That is why the meetings are not public. It is the most disgusting exercise of hidden racism that we have witnessed in recent years. I am not surprised that the Trevi group is not prepared publicly to state what is happening, or to open its meetings to the press and the public. What is Trevi there to do? We need only to look at the list of policy areas that it considers--it is an insult. It discusses terrorism, arms, rabies, AIDS and immigrants. What does that list say about those who participate in Trevi and how they perceive immigrants to Europe? Immigrants are dealt with in a group whose remit is to tackle AIDS, terrorism and rabies. That does not fill me with enthusiasm about what Trevi discusses. I am happy to give way to the Home Secretary if he will say that he is

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prepared either to publish the details of those meetings or to argue at the next meeting that Trevi's meetings should be held in public.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke : I am incredulous about the hon. Gentleman's extraordinary list. Trevi does not consider immigration--it is a group of Security Ministers. A separate ad hoc group of Immigration Ministers discusses immigration matters, but not in the terms described by the hon. Gentleman. His conspiracy theory misleads him. I do not know what he was reading a moment ago, but it was certainly not a description of the Trevi group, which does not have immigration within its terms of reference.

Mr. Livingstone : I am not at all surprised that those Ministers meet as a sub-group of Trevi. If the Home Secretary is so happy with its meetings, let them be in public. They are vital to the interests of the British people.

Let no one on the Labour Benches think that voting for Maastricht will open up that little nest ; it will just institutionalise Trevi's secretiveness. What is decided at Trevi will be steamrollered through, and the House will have little opportunity--

Mr. Blair : Perhaps my hon. Friend would confirm that what happens in Trevi is happening now. It already exists. If it is wrong, it is wrong now, irrespective of Maastricht.

All that article 100c does is to lay down a procedure for agreeing those countries from which visas are required for their nationals and also a common format for the visa. Can my hon. Friend explain why co-operation on those matters is so appalling and must lead to racism? For the life of me, I cannot see that.

Mr. Livingstone : I am glad that my hon. Friend reminds me of that point, which is the very point that I raised yesterday, when I eventually managed to intervene in his speech. Having had so many interventions from his Labour colleagues last night, my hon. Friend staggered out of the Chamber saying, "If I had known it was going to be like that, I would have worn my shinpads."

Mrs. Dunwoody : Would my hon. Friend point out that the Schengen list includes Belize? Those of us who are concerned about the right of Commonwealth citizens to come here can only assume that, if that list is extended throughout the Community, the effect on them will be clear, damaging and unacceptable.

Mr. Livingstone : My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

What worries me most about article 100c is a phrase that I mentioned yesterday in my intervention :

"a threat of a sudden inflow".

That clearly shows how the drafters of Maastricht see the people of the third world--a threat. That underlies the whole logic of the article. I fail to understand how anyone who professes to have any degree of socialism or even any commitment to social justice could vote for a treaty that includes such a phrase. It is blatantly racist. My hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield is grimacing, but that is what I believe. Anyone who is not prepared to vote against the treaty is acceding to racism and even supporting it.

Even if everything else in the treaty was wonderful, I would still vote against it because of that phrase in article 100c. Those of us who represent communities with large numbers of immigrants know how things work today, and we know that the treaty will make that worse. We are already operating an immigration policy--which, to our

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shame, has been accepted and perpetuated by past Labour Governments. There has been 30 years of pandering to racism and introducing more and more restrictions to prevent people from coming to this country.

After housing, the second largest number of complaints I get from my constituents is about immigration policy. Those of us who represent areas with mixed communities know that, if one of our constituents married a white person from Australia, New Zealand or America, that partner would be in this country within weeks, if not days. If that constituent married someone from India or the Caribbean, it could be three years, four years or never before that partner was admitted to this country.

5.45 pm

That is the context in which we must consider the treaty. It does not start with a blank sheet of paper ; it is laid on top of what already exists. It is a clear sign that the nations of Europe view people outside as a threat. We could not find any organisation among the black or brown people of Britain that does not see the proposal as a fortress Europe to exclude those from outside, to keep the wealth of Europe away from the third world and to keep the people of Europe pure from

"a threat of a sudden inflow",

as the treaty puts it.

I should be happy to give way to any hon. Member who could interpret that phrase in any other way. It is an attitude that we have seen before, including in the House.

Mr. Giles Radice (Durham, North) : The European Community comprises only 12 nations. Outside the Community, there are many other nations in central and eastern Europe--including, of course, the former Soviet Union. I suspect that the reference to "a threat" in the treaty is concerned mainly not with countries outside Europe, but with the other countries of Europe where there may be severe problems, such as civil war. I think that that is what article 100c is all about.

Mr. Livingstone : I am not interested in defending only the people of the third world ; I am also interested in defending the citizens of Russia. If a civil war breaks out in Russia or the Ukraine, should we send people back to die ?

Mr. Radice : I was trying to correct my hon. Friend, who was directing his remarks purely towards the third world. I am trying to bring him a little more in touch with the reality of Europe at the moment.

Mr. Livingstone : When we talk to French politicians, it is obvious that their obsession is with the peoples of north Africa and the number of Arabs coming to Europe. I imagine that, in Germany, the obsession is with the east. In Britain, some politicians are obsessed with people from India, Pakistan, Africa and the Caribbean. Obsessions differ as we move around different parts of Europe, but at the end of the day the attitude is the same--keep them out.

Mr. Winnick : I know that my hon. Friend is not especially concerned about the nation state, but does he accept that the virtue of being, so far, an independent country is that we can decide our policies on immigration, whether negative--as, unfortunately, most of them are

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--or otherwise ? If the treaty becomes law, we will talk about the issue, but the final decision will be made elsewhere.

Does my hon. Friend accept that those Labour Members who believe in the nation state are far from being racist ? Like my hon. Friend, they are anti -racist. Some of them, including me, voted against the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968, which took away the rights of so many people who should have been allowed to come here. There were 61 of us, most of them Labour Members.

Mr. Livingstone : My hon. Friend is right. In this Chamber, we can fight against racist immigration policies, but under the Maastricht treaty, such policies will be decided bureaucratically. Ministers will come back to the House saying that they did their best but were outvoted, that they would have used their veto but we might have had money taken away from us as a result.

Mr. Bernie Grant : I agree with my hon. Friend's interpretation. The threats talked about by Le Pen, Jacques Chirac and others are posed by people of a different colour and culture. Is that not borne out by the fact that it is the clear intention to expand the EC to take on board countries such as Russia, Czechoslovakia and Poland, so that the people of those countries will not be seen as a threat? Therefore, the only threat that would be perceived would be from people of colour, not from people in eastern and central Europe.

Mr. Livingstone : A clear strategy is emerging, whereby the Nordic countries, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, perhaps Slovakia, will quickly be brought in. Many eastern European nations will be brought in, largely to provide cheap labour. As they come in, I suspect that restrictions on people from the third world will become stronger day by day.

Mr. Marlow : Is it not a matter of fascination and note that the hon. Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice), the Wykehamist old boy, intervened and, being more European than Mr. Delors himself, justified article 100c on the basis that it could be used by Europeans such as himself to keep Europeans out of Europe?

Mr. Livingstone : I find myself broadly in agreement with that. It is sad that, after years of defeat, years of being in opposition, and years of being ignored, Jacques Delors popped up at the Trades Union Congress, and the trade union movement was so delighted that someone in government somewhere would talk to them that they suddenly thought that Europe was the road to socialism--overlooking the fact that socialism is achieved by struggle. It is not handed down by European bureaucrats, any more than it is handed down by British bureaucrats. The whole Labour movement has gone mad and wild. They have disappeared so far up Mr. Delors' fundament that only the soles of their feet are visible.

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