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The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Doug Henderson): I will be hunted.
Mr. Cash: I suspect that he and the Foreign Secretary will impose a guillotine, and I have no doubt whatever
that they will seek to blame us. I say to my right hon. and learned Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary and the shadow Minister for Europe, my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter), that we are interested in a proper debate, as are all Opposition Members present. I regret the lack of hon. Members in the Chamber, given the importance of the subject.
I place on the record the fact that there is no need for the European Union to make the inevitable progression to a legal federal system. I shall quote briefly from one of our greatest statesman, John Bright, who, in his last speech, asked whether there was any need for a legal federal system within the empire of the United Kingdom and what later became the Commonwealth:
"May we not hope for the highest and noblest federation to be established among us? That is the question to which I would ask your special and sympathetic attention. The noblest kind of federation among us, under different Governments it may be, but united by race, by sympathy, by freedom of industry, by communion of interests and by a perpetual peace. We may help to lead the world to that better time which we long for and which we believe in, though it may not be permitted to our mortal eyes to behold it."
It is thus far better to achieve peace, stability and higher employment by co-operating as sovereign states than to lock ourselves into the arrangements proposed in the Amsterdam treaty. Incidentally, with great respect to our Front-Bench spokesmen, I might add that I strongly believe that the Maastricht treaty should be renegotiated.
7 pm
Mr. Casale: The hon. Gentleman says that he wants a proper debate. If that is so, why does he insist on tabling amendments that would scupper the treaty? Why not re-focus the debate on areas susceptible to serious discussion, instead of trying to undermine the Bill altogether? Or is he seeking to project into the Chamber a debate that is taking place only within the Conservative party?
Mr. Cash: Having just heard the brilliant speech by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, I am well aware that there are differences of opinion in all parties. It is the national interest at stake; the debate should not be defined in terms of party political interest. That is precisely why we have tabled our amendments, in fact.
The hon. Gentleman will understand that we cannot amend the treaty; all we can do is probe and ask questions about why certain provisions have been included. There is nothing negative about the views that we are expressing. I notice the hon. Member for Rotherham or somewhere--or is it Zurich?--holding up his Order Paper. He knows perfectly well that on occasion it can take up to 100 amendments to elicit the truth.
I want to examine the issues covered by article 1, which divide easily into a number of categories: social policy, common foreign and security policy, the free movement of peoples, immigration issues, border controls, freedom, security and justice, the single currency, police and judicial co-operation, and the general subject of flexibility and the Court of Justice.
There is no doubt that social policy will be a source of discord, tension and conflict in Europe. To anyone who doubts that I would recommend the essay by Martin Feldstein. Social policy also poses dangers for our relationships with the rest of the world, and for the
investment that we want to come into the UK and Europe. The plain fact is that, without restrictive social policies, in the past 20 years the United States has generated another 36 million jobs, especially in small and medium-sized businesses. At the same time, Europe, with its restrictive and sclerotic practices, has at best produced 1 million more jobs--although other estimates put the number at zero. Therefore, it reflects no credit on the Government that they should be endorsing the social chapter.
As Patrick Minford has pointed out in an important paper that he wrote for the Official Journal of the European Communities, unemployment in this country alone is set to rise by as many as 3 million, and our GDP to fall by as much as 20 per cent. The Government are, of course, free to challenge the Liverpool model, but I cannot believe that they intend to pursue this sort of policy merely to appease the European Commission. Do the Government not realise that the policies I have described will lead to the people who voted for them on 1 May disappearing like snow in spring? They will have no chance of holding those voters in the next election if they continue to pursue these policies.
I initiated a recent debate on the coal industry; yesterday, a Labour Member had a debate on that same industry. Certain policies being pursued by the EU and advocated by our Government will definitely lead to more unemployment. It gives Conservative Members no satisfaction to realise that the policies pursued by this Government will be against the national interest. They may be worried about losing votes, but it is more important to realise that these policies run clean counter to the national interest.
Mr. Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills):
Essentially, my hon. Friend is saying that he passionately believes in a Europe of nation states, but that that is not on offer from anyone across the channel. This boils down to a fight against Labour Ministers, who believe in the creation of a European state that will mean that the vital powers of the British people to make and live under laws which they can choose and change will be removed from them.
Mr. Cash:
I absolutely endorse my hon. Friend's comments, and I beg the Government, with their huge majority, to act responsibly--even if it is for reasons of self-interest. What matters, of course, is the national interest, and following the ideology underpinning the social chapter will lead to ever more trouble for the people we represent. Indeed, that is why we are in the House--it is time we brought some passion and fire to the European questions that affect the lives of the voters.
Dr. Palmer:
As the community of separate nation states that the hon. Gentleman would favour is not on offer, is not the logical extension of his argument a complete withdrawal from the European Union? By the way, has everything he has said today represented the policy of the Conservative party?
Mr. Cash:
So far as I understand it, the policy of the Conservative party is to oppose the Amsterdam treaty, and that is the position we all adopt. Indeed, I am sure
Mr. Jenkin:
Is not the boot on the other foot? If the Government are not prepared to object to the progressive integration of Europe and the gradual removal of powers from member states' national Governments, they are necessarily complicit in the construction of a European super-state, to which they say they are opposed, but to which also they are turning a blind eye.
Mr. Cash:
As ever, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. We should look at the big picture, because the totality of proposals under Amsterdam combined with Maastricht shows that we are moving towards a European Government. It is no accident that people such as Karl Lamers state that their avowed objective is to have one country. If we move from a single market to a single currency and to a single tax policy, there will no longer be an individual nation state.
I challenge the Minister and Labour Members to deny that Britain is an independent, sovereign state. Let the Minister say at the Dispatch Box that we will not be an independent, sovereign, nation state. Is he prepared to say that? He knows as well as I do the direction in which the Amsterdam treaty is taking us. The arrangements for the corpus juris proposed by Directorate General XX--a common legal area--are concomitant with one single currency, one single tax policy, one country. The Government are showing their complicity by allowing that to happen.
I defy the Minister to deny that that is the direction in which we are going. The Government know perfectly well that that is what it is all about. The Minister looks so uncomfortable as he sits there. Just look at him. He dare not get to his feet, because he knows that that is the position.
What is the effect of a common foreign policy on our affairs? Some people believe that a common foreign and security policy is in the interests of a greater, more united, coherent approach to foreign policy in the European Union. There are practical difficulties. What happened in the Gulf and in Bosnia shows that such an approach did not work. Why have the Government endorsed the idea of high representatives, who would carry out a combination of the new secretary general's political functions and the political functions of the presidency, and who could set their own political agenda in association with the Commission?
Such manoeuvres are highly dangerous and essentially undemocratic. At the beginning of my speech, I said that we are for Europe, for jobs and for democracy. What on earth are the Government doing pursuing a policy that is bound to lead to unelected high representatives having as their function the binding together of policies on their own political agenda in association with the European Commission? That does not make sense. What on earth do we think we are doing?
We should not look back at history for its own sake, but we should consider the implications of these proposals. Surely the Government understand that, if common foreign and security policy is subsumed by the political agenda of unelected persons, it is bound to lead to difficulties for democracy. It is a retrograde step.
As Professor Feldstein has pointed out, this proposal will lead to massive tensions between this country and the United States of America. Who bailed out Europe over Bosnia? NATO and the United States. Why do we want to pursue policies that are inimical to the interests of those who have come to our aid in the first and second world wars, in the Gulf war and in Bosnia?
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