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Mr. Cook: The last change in the Labour party's policy was in 1983-84, when I was our last European affairs spokesman and indeed shadowed the Foreign Secretary. Since 1983-84, our position has been consistently in support of membership of the European Union, recognising, unlike Conservative Members, that if we are to remain a member of the European Union, the worst possible position is the one taken by the hon. Gentleman and his friends--to be in it and know that we cannot get out, but constantly to sound as if we wished that we were not in it.
Mr. Jenkin: Given that we are but one of 15 members of the European Union, why does the most reluctant nation in Europe attract such a huge proportion of inward investment?
Mr. Cook: The hon. Member puts his finger on precisely what he would put at risk. He knows perfectly well, and I know from visiting many companies that have invested from abroad, that they are in Britain precisely because we are one of 15 nations. Make us one nation in isolation and we will not have that investment. If he is hinting at the social chapter, I can tell him, having met many times the Japanese investors in my constituency, that not one of them would have the slightest difficulty in meeting any of the terms of the social chapter.
There is no prospect of the British economy succeeding if the economy on the continent is failing. Either we go down together or we succeed together. There is no magical escape from the ties that bind us to Europe by pretending, as some Conservative Members have sometimes done, that we do not really have that much in common with Europe and that, at heart, we are an Asian nation that has somehow come adrift from our true homeland on the Pacific rim.
It is vital that we get access to the new markets in the far east, but I note that when the Prime Minister went to Bangkok to deal with the Asian nations, he went as part of a European Union team--a team that gave him additional bargaining clout because it spoke for the largest market in the world. In a world that is increasingly coalescing into trading blocs, it is more, not less, important to secure our base in the largest trading bloc. We are much less likely to come to terms with the global economy if we start out by being as difficult as possible to our immediate neighbours.
That is the background against which we come to measure the Foreign Secretary's White Paper, which sets out the Government's benchmark for the IGC. It is difficult to measure that benchmark without a rubber ruler, because its enthusiasm for the European Union expands and contracts with each changing paragraph. If I were still a student of English literature, I would be tempted to say that the text was the work of two hands.
For example, I presumed that it was the Foreign Secretary, the repressed supporter of the European Union, who drafted paragraph 36 on the European Court of Justice which, quite properly, tells that we need
The Foreign Secretary is absolutely right. Since the annual reports on the European Court of Justice commenced in 1984, Britain has lost fewer cases in the European Court of Justice than any other major member. France and Germany have lost more cases than Britain. Belgium, never mind its alleged enthusiasm for Europe, has lost three times as many cases as Britain. Italy has lost six times as many cases.
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich):
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Cook:
I just want to put a question to the Foreign Secretary. He said that the Government were getting increasing support among the countries of the European continent for proposals to limit the powers of the
Mrs. Dunwoody:
I am interested in my hon. Friend's argument. Can he tell us how many times, when Italy has lost, it has implemented the decision of the European Court of Justice?
Mr. Cook:
My hon. Friend argues that the European Court of Justice should have the powers to ensure that its rulings are carried out. That has to be the case for any court. If one respects the rule of law, there must be powers to impose it. I cannot understand the complaint of my hon. Friend and the Conservative Euro-sceptics that other countries do not play by the rules when they want to weaken the very court that enforces the rules.
Mr. Duncan Smith:
May I press the hon. Gentleman on that point? He holds up the European Court of Justice as a shining paragon of judicial intervention. Does he support its ability to translate the treaties, which is called teleological interpretation, or would he seek to limit it to specific interpretation of the treaties as they stand and not reading them as it would wish?
Mr. Cook:
There is no difficulty in replying to the hon. Gentleman, because the court's abilities come from the British system of law. The court should interpret the treaty and the law and not what it thinks about it. On that point, I agree with him.
We turn to paragraph 37--
Mr. Budgen:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Cook:
If I may, I shall proceed with my point, but I shall ensure that the hon. Gentleman has an opportunity to make his.
Paragraph 37 is plainly by a quite different hand. Suddenly, the respect for the need for a strong, independent Court of Justice disappears. Until I heard the Foreign Secretary's speech, I had assumed that it had been hacked into the text after he had gone off to bed by the Minister of State, who emerges as a closet Euro-sceptic when the moon comes out. Paragraph 37 totally ignores paragraph 36 and proposes six different ways of limiting and weakening the powers of this independent court that is needed to enforce the even application of the rules.
As a result, the Foreign Secretary has ended up with negotiating objectives for the European Court of Justice flatly in contradiction with his own analysis. The truth is that, like so much else in the White Paper, the negotiating objectives are drawn up not on any calculation of the interests of the 56 million people of Britain but on a very fine calculation of what is necessary to fit the prejudice of a few dozen Tory Members--which is a perfect point on which to give way to one of them.
Mr. Budgen:
To take up the hon. Gentleman's point about the rule of law, does he agree that one of the ideas behind the rule of law is that one has a legitimate way of
Mr. Cook:
The hon. Gentleman seems to make a strong case against the Foreign Secretary's defence of the unanimity rule. Surely the hon. Gentleman is now in favour of qualified majority voting.
The Foreign Secretary is a better judge of the prejudices of his colleagues than myself. I cannot help the right hon. and learned Gentleman in that calculation, but the omens are not good that he has got those prejudices right.
Mr. Marlow:
Why not answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen)?
Mr. Cook:
I can offer a judgement on the right hon. and learned Gentleman's White Paper against what we regard as Britain's interests in the IGC.
Mr. Marlow:
The hon. Gentleman has not got an answer.
Mr. Cook:
The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) answered his own question by conceding that the veto was damaging to Britain's interests. I thought that that was a most interesting intervention, one to which we shall return on a number of occasions.
How will we measure the White Paper against the public interest? We can judge it against three criteria, and the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West has anticipated one of them. First, are the objectives in the White Paper capable of negotiation? I can be brief about that, because I suspect that the Foreign Secretary is about to hear a succession of speeches telling him that those objectives are not capable of negotiation. That claim is, of course, correct. The general thrust of the White Paper will leave the Foreign Secretary out on a limb, on the sidelines of negotiation. That is not a good place from which to exert bargaining leverage.
I notice that the Government are the only major Government attending the IGC opposed to the reform of the European Parliament, presumably because they are, after all, the Government who have the greatest difficulty in getting their party elected to the European Parliament. I must tell the Foreign Secretary that I can see no British interest served by the Government's position on the European Parliament. Of course, Ministers who go to the Council of Ministers should be accountable to the House. In fact, the House should pay more attention to how it holds Ministers accountable for what they do in the Council of Ministers.
I see no national interest for Britain or any other member state blocking measures that would make bureaucrats in Brussels, who are effectively accountable to no one, more accountable to the European Parliament. I very much doubt whether the Foreign Secretary will be able to think of such an argument, which is one of the reasons he may have difficulty in negotiating on such an objective.
The Foreign Secretary will have noticed that some of his honourable colleagues and some members of the right-wing press are now pressing him to give an undertaking that he will veto the whole package if he does not deliver on his White Paper. Two days ago, a Mr. Boris Johnson, who I understand has aspirations to join the Conservative Benches--no doubt in order that he might better sustain the Foreign Secretary in his conduct of European relations--said that he was alarmed that the Foreign Secretary has not promised in advance to veto the outcome of the IGC.
"a strong independent Court without which it would be impossible to ensure even application of Community law".
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