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Mrs. Currie: I am listening to the hon. Gentleman with some care, but some puzzlement. Many hon. Members on both sides of the House are very much in favour of future developments in Europe. We would much rather hear what the Labour Front-Bench spokesman thinks about that.
Mr. O'Brien: If the hon. Lady waits a little while, she may well hear that. I am coming to her.
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During the debate today, we heard about the fears of the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mrs. Currie) for her party. She said that, if the policy was to change and the Euro-sceptics got their way, she could no longer stand as a Conservative candidate. That symbolises the strife within the Tory ranks today. Not only have Conservative Members joined the Opposition but some Conservative Members feel that, although they cannot do that, they are no longer prepared to carry the Conservative banner into the next election.
Mr. Bernard Jenkin:
What is the Labour party's policy on the matter of convergence? Given that the Library reports that Belgium has a national debt of 130 per cent. of GDP, and it is unlikely that that will reduce below the 60 per cent. threshold in time for the first wave of monetary union, does the hon. Gentleman agree that Belgium does not qualify for monetary union? Will he confirm that that is his interpretation of the Maastricht criteria?
Mr. O'Brien:
We are talking about sustainable economic convergence. I am not sure why the hon. Gentleman is so vexed. It seems from all his speeches that he has already decided what he is going to do. Why would he bother to get involved in the realities of the debate facing his Chancellor, who is trying to make a reasonably argued case against the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues on the Back Benches who do not support their Chancellor? What about the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames (Mr. Lamont), who talked of distrust and betrayal over Europe? He is right, to the extent that there is distrust because the Government put the party before the country. There is betrayal because the Government failed to get the best deal in Europe for Britain.
The Chancellor is not without some support among his Back Benchers. I have already referred to the hon. Member for South Derbyshire. The right hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Renton) made an interesting speech in which he warned that we could not assume that there would be a second opportunity to join a single currency.
Many good points were made by my hon. Friends. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Gapes) challenged the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames on his complacency about the City's position. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) asked whether we wanted Europe to go ahead, leaving Britain behind. My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) gave a timely warning which the Chancellor might like to repeat to some of his Back-Bench colleagues. He said, "Remember when Labour was anti-Europe in the 1980s. A fat lot of good it did us."
My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Timms) asked what sort of vision for the country the Euro-sceptics have. The answer, he said, was none. They hanker after an old empire--an old Commonwealth. Our future is in Europe, he said. The Tory Euro-sceptics might disagree with that, but, as my hon. Friends the Members for Streatham (Mr. Hill) and for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall) pointed out, European co-operation can be both effective and successful for Britain if we get it on the right terms.
My right hon. Friends the Members for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) and for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) made strong contributions to the debate on this issue in
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The policy of a Government must be clear and a Prime Minister must lead--the Government owe the British people a clear sense of direction. Debate within a party is fine--it may even be healthy on occasion--but the Prime Minister must give leadership and this Prime Minister, on Europe, has failed to lead. A Labour Prime Minister, with a united shadow Cabinet and backed by a vote within the Labour party supported by 95 per cent. of the party's membership, will have a clear direction, a clear sense of policy and a clear way to lead.
From this Government, we have seen nothing but extraordinary splits, plotting and counter-plotting which extends to the highest reaches of the Tory party. We have a Chancellor who is quoted as talking of "a boomerang wrapped up in high explosive which has rebounded in the Prime Minister's face". The Conservative party is clearly in ferment. The BBC's Mark Mardell said that one Cabinet Minister told him that the party is "in chaos" and that the Chancellor is running policy, not the Prime Minister.
It all started with that now infamous story in The Daily Telegraph, that the Prime Minister was trying to push the Chancellor into ruling out a single currency in the next Parliament. Then the Chancellor and the Deputy Prime Minister swung into action: the Prime Minister was brought to heel. In the last week, the Tories have had the smack of firm leadership--not from the Prime Minister, but from the Chancellor. The Chancellor is the nearest the Government have to a leader--a tough and determined fighter for his pro-European beliefs. The Tories have a leader in Downing street--at No. 11. He sets the policy and the terms of government.
The Prime Minister was prepared to buckle under to the sceptics on his Back Benches, but the firm hand of the Chancellor steadied him in the pro-European course. When the Prime Minister, at Prime Minister's questions last Tuesday, tried to appear firm by committing the Government to a clear policy in defiance of his Back Benchers, one could almost see the Chancellor and the Deputy Prime Minister metaphorically standing behind him, exerting a steadying grip on each shoulder--or perhaps around his throat.
Even as the Prime Minister wavered, the strong Europhiles in the Cabinet showed their backbone. As the captain steered toward the rocks, the first mate and the bursar grabbed the wheel and put the ship back on course. The mutinous crew is still mutinous, but it appears that, from now on, the captain will do as he is told by the first mate and the bursar--but I suggest that there will be few votes from the public in favour of taking another passage with a crew so divided and at each others' throats as this one.
It is clear that the Chancellor and the Deputy Prime Minister have imposed on the Cabinet a strategy on the single currency that is closer to Labour's policy than to the view of the majority of Conservative Back Benchers. The Prime Minister is the prisoner of the Chancellor and the Deputy Prime Minister. As my hon. Friend the
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We all know the Chancellor's views and those of the Deputy Prime Minister. We know that most Tory Back Benchers broadly disagree with them. We know that the Prime Minister "goes wobbly" from time to time and that the Chancellor has to prop him up. We know that part of the deal is that the Chancellor does not tell us in Parliament what he has really agreed to at ECOFIN, nor can the Prime Minister concentrate on what he agrees at Dublin. Both must tell the House, not what they have done, but what they have not done--that they have not betrayed their Back Benchers. That is how the whole thrust of Government policy on Europe is now directed--to play down any moves towards European agreement and movement forward. They have had to raise isolation to an art form to keep their party together.
The Chancellor claims that binding decisions were not made on monetary union in Brussels on 2 December. The reality is that, with the exception of the definition of "exceptional and temporary" and one or two other small issues, most of the rest of the detail was agreed at various meetings over recent months. There has been a legal base set for the euro and a basis for a new, voluntary exchange rate mechanism. Many of the provisions of the stability pact have been negotiated by the Government.
It is disingenuous to claim that there is no agreement until it is legally binding in June. Either the Government keep the political agreements that they have made or they do not--and most of the agreements have already been made. The idea that it would be practicable for us to reopen all those issues next June is preposterous. The Chancellor is wary of admitting that, because he might exacerbate the civil war in his own party by doing so--yet that civil war goes on.
On Monday, we discovered that the hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) planned for a referendum on complete withdrawal from Europe. The former Tory Minister, Sir Leon Brittan, accused the sceptics of damaging Britain. Lord Tebbit has said that 100 Tory candidates are set to defy the leadership in their personal manifestos. The Tory party is split from top to bottom.
Mrs. Gorman:
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman said that I had decided to introduce a Bill to withdraw from the European Union. That is completely untrue. My Bill proposes renegotiating with the European Union, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman will correct what he said.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
The hon. Gentleman is responsible for his own speech.
Mr. O'Brien:
I thank the hon. Lady for clarifying that point. I accept her clarification, but publicity on the Bill has not been as clear as it should have been.
Labour will fight the next election in favour of constructive engagement in Europe. The Conservatives will claim that that means that we will sell out, but that is just more Tory lies. Labour will defend our national interests in Europe, instead of making a laughing stock of us as the Tories do. Labour opposes a federal state,
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Constructive engagement means improving our relationship with our European partners, not squabbling with them for the purposes of domestic party consumption. It means putting British interests at the heart of Europe, not, as the Tories do, playing the British hokey cokey in Europe--in out, in out, shake it all about--a pointless little dance that no doubt placates Euro-sceptics' egos but, by turn, merely irritates and amuses our European partners.
The Government have not put Britain's interests first in Europe; they put their own political survival first. They damage relationships in Europe to please their Euro-sceptic rump. Tory divisions mean that the Prime Minister is selling Britain short. Labour will protect our national interests. We demand that Britain becomes a leading player in Europe: setting the agenda, not failing to do so; winning and not losing the debate; demanding the spotlight, not heckling from the sidelines. Labour will point the way forward for Europe while the Prime Minister wrings his hands in eternal indecision.
We shall ensure that we drive the single market forward in telecommunications, aviation and financial services. Whether Britain is ready to enter economic and monetary union on 1 January will not alter the necessity of our future being in Europe. That is why the current state of the British Government is so damaging to our people. On Europe, the Tory party is divided, disorganised and disgraceful. It is letting down itself, the country and the British people.
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